


Made Men

by fourteencandles (thingsbaker)



Category: Entourage
Genre: AU, M/M, Tapping the Source
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 05:05:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3755503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingsbaker/pseuds/fourteencandles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>As posted to Livejournal in 2008: This was written for entourage_fest, for my request from dancinbutterfly: At Sundance, Vince and Eric decide they should do Tapping the Source with Harvey Weinstein instead of take a risk on Aquaman. How does their life(second half of Season 2 onwards) change because of this decision? There's so many ways their lives could have been different. Show me what you think. E/V is the only must. I hope it's what you want!<br/>This tries to stay true to the events of Season 2 that were *not* directly Vince-related, so if you haven't seen S2, it may not make as much sense. Weirdly. What fun, though! Thanks to shoshannagold for the read-through.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As posted to Livejournal in 2008: This was written for entourage_fest, for my request from dancinbutterfly: At Sundance, Vince and Eric decide they should do Tapping the Source with Harvey Weinstein instead of take a risk on Aquaman. How does their life(second half of Season 2 onwards) change because of this decision? There's so many ways their lives could have been different. Show me what you think. E/V is the only must. I hope it's what you want!  
> This tries to stay true to the events of Season 2 that were *not* directly Vince-related, so if you haven't seen S2, it may not make as much sense. Weirdly. What fun, though! Thanks to shoshannagold for the read-through.

Eric says, I can’t keep telling you to take these crazy risks, you need a job, man, and so Vince signs with Harvey to do _Tapping the Source_. It ends up being a great move; Cameron only spends ten minutes at the  _Queens Boulevard_ screening and ends up casting Austin fucking Nichols as Aquaman and Mandy Moore as Aquagirl. Vince can only imagine how awkward that would have been for him. He spends a little time moping and thinking about the road not taken, right up until Eric walks out of his bedroom in L.A., script in hand, and says, “You know what, Ari’s right, this thing is your fucking Oscar,” and then he decides that if Eric’s cool with it, so is he.

Australia is beautiful, just like Ari said: Melbourne, the Gold Coast, all of it. They spend three months there. Professionally, it’s a totally rewarding experience all around: The movie really is that good. The script is polished and effective and the shots are well-choreographed. He picks up surfing like it’s second nature, so much so that his instructor gives him a board at the end of their lessons and encourages him to keep going once he’s back in L.A. Beyond all of that, he gets to work with Taylor Hackford, hot off of  _Ray_ , and the rest of the cast is just phenomenal as well. He’s pretty sure Eric’s right: this might be the real thing, the real Oscar ticket.

Personally, however, the filming is trying, for a single reason: Harvey. He’s on set nearly every day in the final two months, having taken over a house in Perth for the duration, and his presence is hard to miss. Luckily, he lets Hackford work with a great amount of autonomy, so Vince’s performance is off-limits from Harvey’s constant comment. Everything else, however, is Harvey’s domain, from the food being served to the quality of the lightbulbs to the way that the PAs dress. Eric somehow gets caught in the middle, time and time again, because he’s one of the only people on set who can stay calm in the face of Harvey’s bluster. The usual rumors of unrest leak out, and Ari starts calling more often because of them, so nearly every time Vince sees Eric, he’s got a phone to his ear and a scowl on his face. Occasionally, Harvey explodes on set, which Eric has to fix, and a few times Harvey even blows up at Eric. He’s intimidating enough that even Turtle and Drama start spending most of their time at the hotel, away from the set. Vince considers getting in the middle of it, but before he can try, an assistant director suggests that maybe Harvey should lighten up about his parking space and gets fired from the movie.

“You’re all replaceable!” Harvey shouts, turning around, and Vince swears his eyes stop on him for a second. “Every single fucking one of you!”

Eric, of course, doesn’t work for Harvey, so he can’t be fired – which might be why Hackford and Harvey use him as their go-between. Vince tries not to worry about it, instead spending most of his time in his trailer with noise-canceling headphones, working on lines and doing push-ups. It doesn’t hurt to be better toned for this movie, and his next project, a sick  _Taxi Driver_ -esque seventies piece called  _Coaster_  about a guy working at Coney Island, calls for some bulk, too, though Vince could do without the constant soreness in his arms and shoulders.

“Yeah, boo-fucking-hoo, you’re gonna have to get another massage,” Eric says, smoking his second cigarette in thirty minutes. “You’ll be on People’s Top Ten again."

“Uh-huh. You gonna eat that or ash in it?”

Eric rolls his eyes and pushes the plate – three-quarters of a pretty decent hamburger still sitting on it – away. He’s lost about ten pounds during filming, replacing food with coffee, cigarettes, and stress. Vince reaches over and grips him by the neck, rubs a little. “Ease up, man, OK?”

Eric nods. The other effect of the Australia experience, so far, has been a new level of – something, between the two of them. Vince wants to call it  _closenesss_ , but he and Eric have always been close. It’s something else, something more. Intimacy, maybe. He’s not exactly sure how or why it’s happened – he’s thinks it’s the combination of watching Eric be assertive all day, which he finds indescribably hot, and watching Eric sort of melt at night, become a little more vulnerable as the exhaustion and stress wears on him. It’s totally alluring. Vince has always kind of had a thing for Eric, but he’s never done anything about it (unless you count a couple random hook-ups with short, red-haired guys back in L.A.).

Now, maybe because they’re thousands of miles from home, maybe because Eric’s free and clear of Kristen, maybe because Vince has been thinking about the only other time in his life that he nearly settled down – with another sharp red-head – Vince feels like the time has come for them to give it a try. But he hasn’t been able to bring himself to say that, exactly, while Eric’s under so much stress from Harvey. Instead, he tries to make the cues subtle, just test the waters. Like now. He leans over and rests his cheek on Eric’s shoulder, and Eric nods, squeezes Vince’s knee and then lets his hand rest there.

“Seriously, E,” Vince says. “You want we should talk to Brenner?” Their other executive producer is about the only person Harvey seems to have any respect for, maybe because his studio is ponying up a lot of the production money.

“No. No. I just have to make it through the next month, get this thing finished. What doesn’t kill you, right?”

“What if it does kill you?”

Eric laughs, though it’s a little empty. “You know, it’s not gonna be me. Comes down to it, I’ll tear the head off that fat fuck.”

Vince smiles. That sounds more like it. “And then we’ll take a vacation,” Vince promises, and Eric nods tiredly.

His phone rings, and he pulls away slowly. “Harvey,” he says, and stands up to take the call outside. Vince can hear Harvey yelling even before Eric has a word out. It’s just not fucking fair. He picks up his own phone and calls Ari, who, when he complains, gives him the usual “yeah, Harvey’s a psycho, but he’s a goddamned brilliant psycho” speech.

“Ari, he’s fucking killing E, though,” Vince says. “It’s like he holds him personally responsible for everything going on.”

“I admit, the shine Harvey’s taken to your boy is a little excessive even by Harvey standards. But I swear to you, Vince, it’s probably a good thing. He’s a bastard, but he respects people who tolerate him. This could end up being a gold mine for your little man.”

“Or a bleeding ulcer,” Vince says, but he gets what Ari isn’t saying: If Eric doesn’t want to get Brenner involved, then there’s nothing else to be done.

So Vince works on his lines and keeps his head down, and he doesn’t say anything when Eric adds a new food group (Tums) to his repertoire. He also doesn’t say anything when Eric falls asleep with his head on Vince’s shoulder in the trailer during the day, or when, one night, he crashes in Vince’s bedroom while they’re watching a few clips Hackford has released for review. The next morning, Eric wakes up and looks briefly disoriented. “Uh, hey,” he says, rubbing his face.

“Yo,” Vince says, reaching across him to turn off the alarm clock. He settles back onto his side of the bed, on his back, with a sigh. The rest of the suite — it has four bedrooms, one for each of them — is still quiet. “What time do we start today?”

“Eleven,” Eric says. “What time is it now?”

“Nine.”

“Jesus, really?” Vince hears him shift around, checking the nightstand, then his pockets. “Harvey’s probably been calling all morning."

“I plugged your phone in in your room,” Vince says. “It needed to charge.” He turns onto his side, looking down at Eric. “Did you sleep OK?”

Eric sighs. “Yeah, actually.”

“You look better.”

Eric raises an eyebrow. “Better than —?”

“Usual,” Vince says. “E, you gotta relax. I feel like this movie’s gonna kill you.”

“I feel like that, too, sometimes,” Eric says, closing his eyes.

“So put your phone away at night,” Vince says.

“They just call my room.”

“So stay in here,” he says. Eric’s eyes snap open again. “What, you said you slept fine.”

“Yeah, but — Vin, I can’t just sleep over all the time. We aren’t in grade school any more.”

Vince keeps looking right at Eric, and he eases his hand forward a little so the backs of his knuckles are brushing Eric’s biceps. “I’m aware,” he says.

Eric snorts. “Uh huh. I start sleeping with you, people are gonna talk.”

“The only people who’d know would be Turtle and Johnny,” Vince says. “And who are they gonna tell?”

Eric sits up a little. “Wait a second. Who are they gonna tell what?”

Vince lets a little smile spread on his face. The hand that was brushing Eric’s arm now creeps over to his thigh. “Well. That’s something we could work out, huh?”

“Vin?”

“C’mon,” Vince says. “You’re seriously telling me you haven’t thought about this?"

“This. This being, you, what, going insane and hitting on me?”

Vince rolls his eyes and keeps staring, watching Eric blush bright red even as his mouth makes a thin white line. His hand is midway up Eric’s thigh, now. He rolls to his stomach, so he’s looking up at Eric, and his whole right side is pressed against Eric’s thigh and leg. “I’m not insane.”

“Uh huh.”

He licks his lips, sees Eric watching him do it. “Tell me,” he says, “that the last couple of months, you haven’t been thinking about this every day.”

Eric doesn’t say anything, but he’s looking at Vince like he’s trying to decide whether to leap out of bed or —

“Vin,” he says, quietly, and puts his hand tentatively on Vince’s shoulder. Vince lowers his eyelids, saying yes, and Eric’s hand moves to his neck, then, with more confidence, to his hair. His fingers comb through, and Vince closes his eyes, just briefly, making sure to keep his mouth open. He knows exactly what he looks like, knows how well this face works on nearly everyone he’s been with and every movie goer who’s seen his last two films. It doesn’t surprise him — though it pleases him — when Eric’s hand moves to cup his jaw. “OK,” he says.

Vince looks up at him through his eyelashes. “OK?”

“I could stay over, some,” Eric says, and Vince laughs.

“Are we still talking about that?” he asks.

“What did you want to talk about?”

Vince gets his arms under him, does a perfect pushup that has the unintended consequence of making Eric’s hand fall away, and then, holding himself up with one arm, he puts one hand on Eric’s right side, then lowers himself again. Eric obligingly (or maybe out of instinct, because his eyes are so wide he doesn’t look capable of logical thought) draws his knees apart, so Vince settles between them. He rests his hands on Eric’s rib cage; his chin is on level with his navel. “What if we stop talking, for a while,” Vince says.

Eric nods rapidly. Now he licks his lips, and though he doesn’t lose the look like he can’t quite believe this is happening, his voice is firm, solid Eric. “Is the door locked?”

“Yeah,” Vince says. “Scoot down.”

He does exactly as Vince asks, and within seconds, their bodies are perfectly aligned. It’s surprisingly easy — it actually surprises Vince how little he has to think about what happens next, because in his mind, he’s planned exactly how he’d seduce Eric, step-by-step. It’s not that Vince is a planner — he just wanted to make sure everything would go OK, wanted to make things perfect, wanted to use everything he’d learned over the years. But it turns out, all of that stuff flies out of his head the minute Eric, his eyes still wide, tilts his head up for a kiss. Because holy fuck, he’s kissing Eric, his best friend, the guy who’s been with him his whole life, and if this doesn’t work out, if this doesn’t —

“Vince?” Eric’s hands are on his shoulders, and he’s looking up at Vince with a new expression, puzzled, worried, totally turned on. 

It’s Eric. His best friend. “I want you,” Vince says. “E, these last two months, I just — I really want you.”

“Good,” Eric says, and he puts his hands on either side of Vince’s head, tangles his fingers in Vince’s hair again. He shifts his legs just so, and Vince’s cock rubs against Eric’s nearly perfectly. “I want you, too.”

They don’t really do much, just rut against each other and kiss, and kiss, and kiss, and for about the first time since high school, that’s all Vince needs to get off. He dozes for a while after that, his head on Eric’s shoulder, and wakes up to Eric rubbing his neck.

“Hey,” he says, and his voice is so soft that Vince feels a little shaky. He looks up, and Eric’s watching him, still, with that wary, wondrous expression. “Time to get going.”

Vince nods. He pushes himself up, but he takes a moment to kiss Eric, and he doesn’t even have to think about it. When he gets out of the shower, Eric’s gone, but fifteen minutes later when he walks out to the common area, Eric’s there, cleaned up and dressed up, his cell phone against his ear. Turtle’s on the couch, complaining about everyone “bitching out” on him last night.

“Jesus, I didn’t think I’d live to see the day even Drama ditches me because he’s got an actual date,” Turtle says. Vince sits on the couch by Turtle to tie his shoes. “And E’s basically married to Harvey, and you were —”

“Tired,” Vince supplies, and Turtle rolls his eyes.

“Just promise me, Vin, you’re not gonna get a fucking girlfriend, all right?” he says.

Eric snaps his phone shut, and Vince knows without looking over that he’s being watched. He shakes his head. “I can honestly promise I’m not even in the market for a girlfriend right now.”

“Thank fucking God,” Turtle says.

Eric sends Turtle down to get the car, and then he turns and looks at Vince, tips his head. “We’re OK, right?” he asks.

“E,” Vince says, and he takes two steps forward, puts his hands on Eric’s shoulders, and kisses him. It takes Eric a second, but he responds, puts a hand on Vince’s waist. “Yeah, I think we’re OK.”

Eric’s grinning wide and bright, and he ducks his head. “Good,” he says. “Good.”

They don’t really talk about it again, but for the last month of filming, Eric does start crashing in Vince’s room on occasion, and they settle into a comfortable routine of low-impact sex and, OK, cuddling. Eric’s still tired all the time, so not much really happens, but Vince is pretty happy. It does something for him to see how much Eric wants him, yeah, but it also does something to him when he realizes how awesome it feels to combine sex and friendship. No wonder Eric’s been crazy about having relationships all this time. It’s pretty fucking great. He’s never felt like this with anyone before, and he realizes that it’s been that way most of his life, with Eric. Somehow, adding sex to the mix has made things feel — well, it’s like everything’s the same, but better.

The night before filming’s set to finish, Vince walks into Eric’s room at the hotel and finds him all dressed up. “I thought we were laying low tonight,” he says, and Eric shakes his head.

“Dinner with Harvey,” he says, snapping his cufflink.

Vince frowns. “You want me to come?”

Eric shakes his head. “Nah. I’ve survived this long, I can take one more night.” He looks himself over in the mirror, then turns for Vince’s approval.

“You look good,” Vince says, straightening his tie. He lets his hand rest on Eric’s chest, and Eric looks up at him. Still meeting his eyes, he covers Vince’s hand, and Vince smiles a little. Intimacy, he thinks.

“One more day,” Eric says, giving his wrist a little squeeze. “Then vacation.” Vince nods. He smoothes Eric’s shirt. “Don’t wait up.”

“Not likely,” Vince says, and watches Eric walk out.

He spends the evening with Turtle, because Johnny’s been seeing one of the girls on the costume crew. They watch a movie on pay per view that Vince has been wanting to see, then spend about an hour boxing on the Playstation before Johnny wanders in. “Nah, she has an early call,” he says, when they quiz him on why he’s not staying the night with Larissa. “But get this, we’re totally hooking up back in L.A., too.”

“So you got a girlfriend, but you’re still here with us on a Friday night.”

“It’s Saturday, moron,” Johnny says, and Vince laughs a little.

“Who cares what day it is? You didn’t get laid, Vin’s waiting up for E, and I struck out with another extra today.” Turtle grabs the remote. “Fuck, let’s watch porn."

Vince hears Eric come in around midnight. “Yo, E, you gotta see this, man,” Turtle says, but Eric waves them off and walks back to his room. Vince gets up, and Turtle stares at him. “You want us to pause it?”

“Nah, we’ll just rewind when you get back,” Johnny says, and Vince rolls his eyes. “Hurry up.”

He grabs two beers from the minifridge, then follows Eric back to his room. “Yo, you survived."

“Yeah,” Eric says. He’s hanging up his jacket. The tie is already gone, his top button is loose. Vince takes a seat on the bed, leaning against the headboard, and holds out the beer. Eric sighs and takes a seat next to him. From the living room, the guys hoot in unison and Johnny says, “No fucking  _way_  that doesn’t leave a mark.”

“Porn,” Vince says, shrugging, and Eric rolls his eyes. He opens the beer in one sharp twist. “So what’d Harvey want?”

Eric takes a sip. “He, uh. Actually, he offered me a job.”

“What?”

Eric takes another drink, then outlines his dinner discussion slowly. Harvey loved  _Queens Boulevard_. He loves  _Medellin_. He loves Eric’s enthusiasm for  _Tapping the Source_ , and thinks the suggestions he’s had – trimming the end off a competition sequence, recasting the love interest, moving one of the major scenes to the waterfront, to save on production costs – have been spot-on. “He said Matterhorn was a good pass and asked what I thought about Capri Islands, what I thought about Tony Gilroy. It was like a fucking pop quiz.”

Vince turns so he’s facing him. “And you passed,” Vince says.

Eric nods. “He said he could use someone new at his place to help oversee a couple of productions this year.”

Vince takes a sip of his beer just to have a second to think. “So he wants – what, he wants you to be his assistant?”

“More like his apprentice,” Eric says. His tone is almost defensive.

“Wait, are you seriously thinking about this?” Vince asks.

Eric shrugs, then says, kind of quietly, “Yeah.” He looks over. “He’s talking about paying me a million dollars for the first year, plus one percent on anything I bring in that gets made.”

“This is about the money?”

“No,” he says, “it’s about the opportunity. I think – I could be doing more, you know? All this shit, the last few months – that’s what I’ve learned.” He toys with the label on his bottle. “He’s giving me a producer credit on the film.”

“What?”

Eric nods. “Whether I take the job or not. He said, I’m gonna make you a co-producer on this film, and I said, why not just producer, thinking he was joking, and then – bam. He did it, just like that. I’m a fucking producer.” He shakes his head. “Just think, me earning my fucking keep.”

“E,” Vince says, leaning forward. He puts his hand on Eric’s knee, right next to Eric’s hand, and he shifts closer. He needs Eric to listen to him. “You already do. You know that.”

“Yeah, but this – I don’t know, Vin. It feels like something I can’t pass up.”

Vince frowns. “You’ve been so crazy fucking busy these last few months, though. Dangerously busy.” He taps Eric’s wrist bone, leaves his finger resting there. “Are you sure – I mean, you really want to go through this on a daily basis? The guy’s a fucking lunatic, Eric.”

He nods. “I can handle Harvey.” Vince rolls his eyes, and Eric laughs. “Look, worst case, I last a week, then I go back to my day job.”

“Yeah, what about that? What about me?”

Eric laughs again. “You’re set for the next year with projects, anyway, and I managed that all the way from fucking Australia.” He shakes his head. “I think I can handle you, too. In fact, I’ll probably be reading better stuff, more stuff, working for Harvey than just depending on Ari and word of mouth.” His hand lifts from Vince’s, drops onto his thigh, instead. “I haven’t been  _that_  busy,” he says, “right?”

Vince nods. He feels strangely queasy about the whole thing, but Eric seems excited, so he doesn’t want to show it. Instead, he clinks his bottle to Eric’s and says, “Then, I guess, congrats, man.”

Eric smiles and draws back. “Thanks.”

“Hey, uh, when do you start?”

Eric smirks. “In a month,” he says, and Vince smiles. “What, you think I was gonna skip out on the promised vacation?”

“Well, new high-powered job –"

“Fuck that,” Eric says. He glances at the still-open adjoining door, then lowers his voice, though the tone is unmistakably erotic. “We have some serious, uh,  _vacationing_  to do.”

Vince raises an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m sort of planning to  _vacation_  you until neither of us can walk.”

Vince looks back at the door, then at Eric. “It  _is_  the last night,” he says. “Any reason the vacation can’t start early?”

“Two of them,” Eric says, “and they’re both waiting up.”

Vince stands up, walks to the door, and ducks his head into the hall. “Guys, I’m beat, I’m just gonna crash. Don’t worry about the movie, I’ll catch it, uh, later.”

“You bet, bro,” Johnny says, his eyes never moving from the screen.

“Night, Vin.”

Vince closes and locks the door, then turns to Eric and shrugs. “Problems solved,” he says. He sits on Eric’s bed, and Eric turns to face him, rests his hands on Vince’s waist. Vince smiles up at him. “Let’s get this vacation started right.”

* * *

The guys find out eventually, of course; a week into vacation on Turks and Caicos, Johnny walks into Vince’s room to see what he wants for breakfast, and Eric’s still there, wrapped around him. A brief freak out and some very girly shrieking follows, but by the time they’re all together for lunch, Johnny and Turtle are both acting cool about the whole thing. 

“Seriously, I think it’s way weirder that you wanna work for Harvey than that you wanna bang Vince,” Turtle says. “I mean, nobody I know has ever wanted to work for Harvey.”

Eric shakes his head. “It’s not forever, just to get some connections, figure out the business a little more,” he says. “Think of it like school.”

“Fuck, that’s even worse,” Turtle says. “I definitely know less people that liked school than who wanna bang Vince.”

“Well, banging Vince isn’t exactly a career option,” Johnny says, and Vince laughs. “I’m not saying there isn’t some career advancement potential in being your associate, bro, you know, but –“

“I get it, Johnny,” Vince says. “And look, guys, can we keep it a little quieter about the whole who’s-banging-who bit? I don’t really need Us Weekly picking this up quite yet.”

“No fucking kidding,” Eric says into his orange juice, but he winks at Vince when he catches his eye.

They spend the rest of their vacation doing everything a good vacation should include, which is to say, very, very little. They sleep in every day, eat enough that Eric gains back everything he lost during production, surf a little, swim a little, and fuck a lot. Vince works on his tan, and Eric works on quitting smoking, again. In between they have some nice, long talks about what it will mean to go forward as a couple, and Vince surprises himself by taking that all in stride. They both agree that coming out isn’t in their best interest, but they also agree that Ari and Shauna should be informed.

“What about Harvey?” Vince asks. They’re sitting in Vince’s bungalow on the couch, Vince’s feet in Eric’s lap.

“What about him?”

“You gonna tell him about us?”

Eric frowns. “Not if I don’t have to,” he says, and then it’s Vince’s turn to frown. “I don’t mean that how it sounds, I mean – Harvey’s a lunatic, like you said. One of my first priorities is gonna be making sure that if things go bad with him, I don’t want that rebounding on you. So, I figure, the less he knows about us, the better.”

“Sounds reasonable, I guess,” Vince says. “But mostly because I don’t like the idea of you talking with Harvey about sex at all.”

Eric makes a gagging noise. “Please promise me you aren’t jealous of Harvey.”

“I’m not jealous of anyone.” He grins. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got you right where I want you. Or, well, almost right where I want you,” he says, sliding one foot behind Eric and urging him to stretch out. When he’s on top of Vince, Vince kisses him and rubs his back. “See, here, this is perfect. No more about Harvey.”

“You brought him up,” Eric says, and kisses him back. “It is pretty perfect.”

Vince grips Eric’s shoulders as Eric moves down, kissing his neck, then his collarbones. “We should do this more often,” he says.

“What, have sex?” Eric says, looking up from near Vince’s navel.

“No. Well, yes. But I mean, vacation.”

Eric smirks, first, but then his gaze kind of softens. “We should,” he says. “Every year, at least.”

“I like that,” Vince says. “Like a reunion tour.”

“Like an anniversary tour,” Eric says, climbing back up to kiss Vince on the mouth. “I mean —”

“E, I mean it,” Vince says, holding on to him. “I’m serious, we’re gonna make this work.”

Eric smiles, and it’s just beautiful, a trusting, happy, surprised smile. “I hope so, he says. “I really hope so.”  


* * *

 

When they get back to L.A., Eric goes to work for Harvey’s company, HWP. At first it’s a little weird to see Eric get up and go to work every morning, like he’s some kind of slick downtown banker, but soon they get into a nice rhythm. Eric does most of his work for Harvey early in the day, so there’s usually time for lunch or sometimes for an afternoon on the links. He has more business dinners than he used to, but when he gets back from those, he usually falls right into Vince’s bed, which suits Vince just fine.

They have two months at home for Eric to get settled in as Harvey’s go-to guy before it’s time to start filming  _Coaster_. It’s mostly set in-studio, though there’s a week of on-location stuff planned in Boston. In some ways, it’s like a replay of Australia — Harvey isn’t on set, but he is on Eric’s phone most of the day. But Eric’s there, regardless, whenever Vince needs him, and he even makes the trip to Boston with him. “You’re sure Harvey’s OK with this?”

Eric rolls his eyes. “Jesus, you’re afraid of that guy, huh?”

“I’m not afraid of Harvey,” Vince says, though honestly, he is a little, and it gives him a strange thrill to realize how fucking tough Eric actually is to work for the guy. “I just don’t want you losing your job and then blaming me for it.”

“Harvey respects loyalty,” Eric says, and they leave it at that.

After they get back from filming, Vince has a nice break scheduled over the winter — almost five months between films. Since he made five million for  _Coaster_ , it feels like a deserved break. He only wishes Eric could take the time off with him. Things are going really well for them, as a couple; better than Vince could have hoped. Eight months in, he still gets a fluttery, happy feeling in his stomach sometimes when Eric smiles across the table at him, or even when Eric touches him in some casual but tender way.

They aren’t the only ones with a budding romance, either. Johnny and his girlfriend, Larissa, have been seeing a lot of each other since they’ve come back to L.A. Vince likes Larissa because she really, really likes his brother. She’s a costumer by trade, a little older than Vince and a little younger than Johnny, and she’s worked on something like twenty different films over the span of her career, doing costume design and completion. Johnny’s serious about her, and though it makes Turtle apoplectic to consider that everyone’s getting laid but him, Vince thinks it’s cool. He’s happy to see his brother happy, happier still because he gets to share in the happiness, as things are going well with Eric. 

“Yeah, we should double sometime,” Johnny says at breakfast one morning, slicing clean through a tomato as he talks.

Eric looks up from his oatmeal. “Uh, really, Drama?”

“Yeah, wouldn’t Larissa think it’s weird, going out with your brother and his manager?”

Johnny snorts. “She had you guys figured out in Australia.” 

Eric gives Vince a funny, sharp look. “Really?”

Johnny shrugs. “Because she knew me, I think.” He pauses, concentrating very hard on slicing a new tomato. “And I might’ve let some things slip I shouldn’t have.”

Eric groans. “Jesus fucking Christ, Drama, you’re like an ambassador to the Hollywood Reporter.”

“Hey,” Johnny says, pointing with his knife, “I let something slip to my girlfriend, who I love, not to someone from the newspaper. Besides, she’s cool. You know how many films she’s worked on?”

“Twenty,” they say in unison.

“You don’t get to where she’s at without knowing some pretty crazy secrets,” Johnny says. “Ask her sometime about the panels she had to sew into Scarlett’s last dress to keep her belly from flopping out.”

Vince snickers. He reaches across and grabs a piece of Eric’s bacon to munch on. “I appreciate that you trust her,” he says. “Just make sure she understands that this is a secret, OK, Johnny?”

“Absolutely,” he says. “And I’m serious about this, she wants to see you guys. It’d be fun.” Eric scoffs. “What, you’re too Hollywood to be seen with a lowly costumer now?” Johnny says. “Big film producer, can’t dirty your table with the television class?”

Eric sighs and rolls his eyes, and Vince hides a grin. Johnny’s been on a kick recently about the “two classes” in Hollywood, where Vince — and, by association with Vince and Harvey, Eric — are part of a blessed upperclass, whereas Johnny and many of his “hard-laboring, underpaid brethren” fall into the lower, working-class.

“Drama, we don’t date,” Eric says.

“Oh, now, that’s just not true,” Johnny says. “Unless I’m mistaken about your recent dinner at Il Sole.”

Vince smirks. “He has a point, E,” he says. “That was a pretty romantic outing.” Really, they’d talked mostly business that night, fresh off a meeting with Ari.

“Yeah, I did pay.”

“And you did get lucky.”

Eric laughs.

“Come on, it’s L.A.,” Johnny says. “Guys go to dinner all the time. Besides, it’s not like I’m saying you should make out at the table or anything.”

Eric raises one eyebrow, and Vince grins. “Yeah, wouldn’t want to shock the kids,” Eric says, and then shakes his head. “All right, Drama, yeah, let’s go sometime.”

“Maybe next weekend,” Johnny says. “I’ll check with Larissa. The new place on Wilshire. I hear they make a caponata to die for.”

“OK,” Eric says, “sounds great, uh, yeah.” He clears his throat awkwardly, and Vince smiles a little, too, because he knows Eric isn’t hearing a word Johnny’s saying. Vince’s foot in his lap is making sure of that.

After breakfast, Eric asks Vince if he can see him for a second, and Vince finds himself pressed against the wall in Eric’s den a few minutes later. “What the fuck just happened?” Eric asks, panting, still hard.

“You agreed to dinner with Johnny and his girl?” Vince says, grinning. “A double date?”

“You ever fucking pull any shit like that at a restaurant, I’ll —” but Eric doesn’t finish the threat, just kisses Vince, and that’s the response he wanted, anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

Dinner with Johnny and Larissa gets pushed back — she’s commuting to San Diego for a new television series — but Vince and Eric still use “a caponata to die for” as a code for sex the next few days. Ari calls them in the next week to talk about new projects, and Eric says he has a good feeling about what’s coming.

“He told me you should brush up on your Spanish,” he says as they ride up in the elevator, and Vince raises an eyebrow.

“Medellin? Seriously, you think?”

Eric shrugs. “Last I heard, Benecio Del Toro was attached, but maybe he’s back in rehab or something.”

“Christ, I hope so,” Vince says as they stop on Ari’s floor.

Eric holds the door for him, and Vince sees Ari’s eyes get the narrow, nervous look they so often do now. He took the news of their being a couple surprisingly well, all things considered, but he still gets jumpy about it — like he thinks if he turns his back, Vince and Eric might start making out on the couch or something. Vince thinks it’s hilarious and does everything he can to make Ari more uncomfortable, like sitting with his arm slung along the back of the couch, over Eric’s shoulders. He also makes a point of referring to Eric as “my boyfriend” when they meet (as in, “I don’t know, Ari, let’s see what my boyfriend thinks”). Ari refers to Eric’s role with different language, of course, but Vince finds that pretty funny, too.

“OK, mis amigos,” Ari says, rubbing his hands together, “you ready for some news?”

“Nah, we just came to enjoy the scenery,” Eric says.

Ari stops with his hands still pressed together. “Don’t be jealous, Vinnie, he doesn’t mean it,” he says.

“Ari, come on,” Vince says, leaning forward a little. “Did you get Medellin or what?”

“No,” he says, and Vince sighs, almost not caring to hear what comes next. “I got you something better.” He grabs a script from his desk and tosses it at Eric. “Alfonso Cuarón needs a lead for his next movie. He saw Queens Boulevard and he wants to know how you do with accents.”

“Cuarón, really?” Vince says.

“We loved Y Tú Mama Tambien,” Eric says, and Ari rolls his eyes.

“Probably for all the wrong reasons,” Ari says, but he shakes his head. “It films next spring, half in studio, half in Chicago. They’re offering five; if you go up for an Oscar, I can get it to six.”

Vince looks over at Eric, who’s looking at the script. “All right,” Eric says, “we’ll take a look.”

“Take a look tonight,” Ari says. “Once Children of Men comes out, I swear to you, Cuarón will literally mean Oscar in Spanish.”

They nod and agree to look it over, and on the way back down to the car, Vince says, “Cuarón. Seriously, E, that’d be sick.”

He nods, glancing at his watch. “I’ll read it tonight,” he says.

He doesn’t actually get to it for a few days, which turns out OK because it gives Vince time to read it. He loves the script — the movie’s about a bike messenger and a lot of missed connections, and something in it really resonates for Vince. When Eric finishes it and says, “Yeah, I love it,” Vince is glad. “I’ll call Ari,” he says, and Vince agrees.

“Should we go down, take a meeting or something?”

Eric frowns. “Not if you want this done soon. Honestly, I don’t think I have time for a meeting until next week.”

“OK,” Vince says, shrugging, and settles back in bed. “As long as we get this, I’m happy.”

And he is happy, really. He’s got two good films finished, one to look forward to, and a boyfriend whose opinion on just about everything he can trust. Fantastic. He’s also got a bunch of free time, which is not so cool, because although Vince would love to take Eric, as his boyfriend, to some new romantic hotspot and spend a few weeks making up for all the years of friendship where he wasn’t well-acquainted with Eric’s cock, Eric’s busier than ever. 

 _Tapping the Source_  gets released on-time, a miracle considering the tight production and post schedule Harvey put it on, and instead of lessening Eric’s stress, it increases it: Harvey’s so happy with the results that he throws a ton of new projects Eric’s way. “It’s actually sort of a privilege,” he says, when Vince and the guys roll in around 2 one night and find Eric sitting on the couch, reading scripts. “Almost nothing gets to Harvey now without me looking it over.”

“You’re gonna go blind, if you keep reading like that,” Johnny says.

Turtle snorts. “Is that what you think is causing your eyesight problems, Drama? ‘Cuz I got a different suspicion.”

“Hey, I don’t need to whack it, Turtle, because unlike you, I’ve got a girlfriend.”

Vince laughs and drops onto the couch, and Eric shifts the script he’s reading so Vince can rest his head in his lap. “Yeah, seriously, Turtle, we need to get you a girl.”

“I’m pretty good with the single life, thank you very much,” Turtle says. “I did just fine tonight with your girl’s friend.”

Eric looks down at him, and Vince shrugs. “Some girl who was a PA on the last thing. Nothing happened,” he says, and Eric meets his eyes, then nods. “If you don’t believe me, come along, next time.” Vince wags his eyebrows. “It’ll be fun.”

“Who has time for fun?” Eric asks, but they go to bed quickly after that and indulge in Vince’s favorite pastime.

Really, though, Eric doesn’t have a lot of time for fun anymore. He’s on call for Harvey all the time, and the fruits of that labor are starting to show. He opens another movie and it makes just over its predicted take.  _Tapping the Source_ gets a handful of nominations at the Golden Globes — including Best Actor in a Drama for Vince and Best Picture for the producers, Harvey and Eric included. People start to recognize Eric when they go out. At first it’s just waiters and the occasional business guy, but after the Academy nominations come out, it’s a higher class of Hollywood recognition. Spike Lee catches them at the Lakers Game to ask Eric about an upcoming release; the next night, Stephen Soderbergh stops at their table at The Palm to chat about a script.

“How do you know Stephen Soderbergh?” Vince asks, duly impressed.

Eric shrugs. “He was in a meeting earlier this week about a new project. Nice guy. Really fucking smart. I think he’s gonna work with us.”

Eric doesn’t actually talk too much about his work with Harvey, maybe because when he does, Vince tends to tune out. He knows it involves taking a lot of meetings and doing a lot of follow-up, but that’s about it. Put that way, it doesn’t sound exciting, and that’s why Vince hasn’t been listening too much, but Soderbergh gripping Eric’s shoulder like they’re old pals, well, that’s got his attention.

“How’s Harvey treating you?”

Eric shrugs. “He’s fucking brilliant about business, Vince. I mean, did you know, he founded HWP on 47 dollars? Forty-seven dollars, a reputation as a fixer, and Barry Diller’s home phone number, I guess. Now, the next studio up is Paramount. I mean, think about that, that’s incredible.”

Vince smiles. “So what, you wanna start the next Paramount, now?”

“No,” he says, and grins. “I wanna start the next Sony. Why be anything other than number one, right?”

It’s not that hard to believe, really, that Eric might be on the path to all that. 

* * *

 

Vince misses out on the Oscar and can’t really complain, because DiCaprio’s work in  _The Departed_  was incredible. Facing stiff competition all around, the movie took home two awards at the Globes — supporting actress and Best Drama. Seeing Eric’s smile as he stands on stage while Harvey blusters at the mic, Vince can forgive Harvey just about anything.

Eric puts the award in Vince’s bedroom. “If I’d given a speech,” he says, climbing into bed, “I would’ve thanked you first.”

“So thank me now,” Vince says, grinning, and pulls Eric down.

That award and the Oscar nominations turn them both into real players. Ari has a couple of projects in mind for him that sound good, and Eric agrees, though he’s a little more cautious. He wants Vince to wait for  _Coaster_  to release before he signs for anything else, because a solid studio movie will say something new about him, whereas winning work on two indie films is less surprising. Vince agrees. He’s always trusted Eric before, and this new Eric — slick producer Eric — seems to know even more what he’s talking about.

Vince is still on vacation, and once the awards shows and all of the interviews they required are over, he’s back to having a lot of time on his hands. So one afternoon, Vince stops in to see Eric at work after a session at the gym. “He’s in a meeting,” the receptionist says, “but you can wait in his office if you want.” 

Vince nods. He doesn’t really want to hang around if Harvey’s in, but the receptionist assures him that Harvey’s in Telluride for the weekend, and Vince has a vague memory of Eric saying he was going down to harass Katzenberg about something. So Vince walks down the hall, past Harvey’s dark office and then past the open door of the conference room, and he stops because he can hear Eric’s voice from inside.

“No,” he’s saying, “no. That was not our deal. Our deal was 82 days, David. Eighty-two. And those last two were a gift, that was just something we threw in, because you said, you remember this, you said, ‘I can get it done in 75 if I have to.’”

“Things have come up,” the other guy, David, says. His voice is even but his words come out fast, and Vince can tell without seeing him that he’s panicky. “We — the scene at the bar was a lot more involved than we thought it would be, and I —”

“And you fucked up the swimming pool scene. Yeah,” Eric says, his voice knife-sharp, “I heard all about that. You think I didn’t notice when I saw the dailies? You spent five days in the water when you should have spent one. Jesus fucking Christ.”

“That was a very technical scene,” David says. Now his voice is higher, a little snotty, and Vince winces at the tone. “I don’t expect you to understand, but —”

“Fuck you, David, understand this: you just lost a million from your post budget.”

“You can’t —”

“Bullshit, I can’t,” Eric says. “You wanna go for two?” Silence. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.” Vince hears a chair scrape the floor, then Eric’s voice, a little quieter but still angry. “I’m the best friend you have in this place, you know that? Harvey wanted to go with Ericson, but I said no, let’s give the guy a chance. I sat him down with a single-malt scotch and the director’s cut of Pillow Talk, and at the end of it, he said, I sure as shit hope this guy doesn’t fuck things up, and I said, no way, Harvey, he’s got his head on straight. And now you go and pull shit like this, it makes me look like a fucking moron. When I stuck my neck out for you.”

“I know,” David says.

“I’m not mad because it’s taking more time,” Eric says. “It’s that I gotta go down to the fucking set to find out for myself. It’s that I can’t fucking trust you, David, and you’ve got a huge fucking pile of our money, for me not to trust you.”

“I’m sorry, Eric,” he says. “I know, I know. I just got caught up, and Harvey —”

“Harvey isn’t here right now,” Eric says. “Have you been dealing with Harvey? Have I ever said I’m gonna bring him in? Then why in the fuck are you hiding behind that, huh? Jesus. As far as you’re concerned, Harvey doesn’t exist. It’s just you and me, David. Look, you just — go back to your set and fix things. No, no, don’t fucking apologize, just fix it. You know I’m behind you on this, you know I’ve got your back, right? OK, then. OK. Let’s make this thing.”

Vince ducks into Eric’s office before either guy emerges, and it takes about five minutes before Eric makes it in. He smiles when he sees Vince. “Hey,” he says, his face so quickly happy that Vince feels a rush of affection, “what’re you doing here?”

“Getting hard,” Vince says, and he closes Eric’s office door and locks it. He’s already pulled the blinds. He grabs Eric by the biceps and kisses him, drawing him back toward his desk.

Eric says, “What the —”

“You’re so fucking hot,” Vince says, and leans against Eric’s desk as he starts working on his own fly.

“What are you — mm — what are we —”

“You’re gonna fuck me,” Vince says, reaching for Eric’s belt. “Right here on this desk where you can sign away a million dollars at a time.”

“Vin, we can’t — there are people —” Vince shimmies out of his pants, then sits on the desk and gets one leg around Eric’s waist. Their cocks collide and Eric groans, a delicious low sound.

“Your boss is in Telluride,” Vince says, unbuttoning Eric’s shirt enough that he can suck on his collarbone. “C’mon, c’mon.”

“Yeah,” Eric says, and his hands grip Vince’s hips. “OK.”

It surprises him a little when Eric turns him over, but then he realizes that’s a good plan, because it allows him to grab the desktop for balance. Eric slicks them both up with hand lotion or something like that he’s found in his desk, and they both groan, though quietly, when he pushes in.

“Hard,” Vince says, his hands clenched around the edge of the desk.

“Fuck, yeah,” Eric says, and he goes for it. Vince is glad for all the push ups he did, because his arms start to burn after a few minutes, holding himself up as Eric pounds into him, the angle so fucking perfect he’s seeing stars with every move, hissing  _yes yes yes_  between his clenched teeth. It feels fucking wonderful, and he eventually has to drop to his elbows so that he can bite a few of his fingers to keep from really letting the receptionist know what’s going on.

“No, no, c’mon, c’mon,” Eric says, and Vince whimpers when he pulls out. Then Eric turns him around, his hands on Vince’s hips, and kisses him breathless. He strips off both of their shirts. Vince is still so turned on and out of it that all he can do is cling to Eric, following him down to the floor, on top of their shirts. Eric gets Vince’s legs up, one over Eric’s shoulder, and he starts again, this time kissing Vince even as he thrusts manically. Vince comes with Eric still hard inside of him, and it takes Eric another minute but then he collapses onto Vince’s chest. 

Vince unbends his legs, gingerly, wincing as Eric’s soft cock slips out of him, and Eric stirs and kisses his neck. His breath is just slowing enough that he can hear the faint ring of the phone in the outer office.

“Did you come here just for this?” Eric says, kissing him again.

Vince laughs. “I came to see if you had time for lunch.” He rubs Eric’s back, tilts his head back to accept another gentle kiss. He loves it; Eric’s always so cuddly after sex.

“You missed me, huh?”

“E, I miss you all the time,” Vince says, earnestly. “You’re my favorite part of the day.”

Eric smiles, slow and shy, which makes Vince want him even more. Vince would never tell him, but it’s appealing how much Eric wants him, how sometimes, when he’s being particularly unguarded, he seems surprised and delighted by every nice thing that Vince does or says for him. And Vince does want to do nice things, because he loves Eric, and sometimes it surprises him, too, that he loves Eric, and that Eric, of everyone in the world, loves him back.

Eric kisses him on the mouth, gently, his hands on either side of Vince’s face. “Mine, too,” he says. “I’m glad you stopped by.”

“You have time for lunch?”

Eric laughs and sits back. “I think this was lunch,” he says, getting to his feet. “And Christ am I glad I keep an extra shirt at the office.”

“You have another?” Vince asks, and Eric laughs.

“Looking like that, you should go straight home,” he says. He grabs his boxers and pulls them on, then drops Vince his. “You want me to call a car or something?”

“Turtle’s waiting,” Vince says, which makes Eric laugh again. Vince uses Eric’s shirt to clean himself up a little, then pulls on the underwear again. He stands up and puts his arms around Eric’s waist from behind. “Come home with me,” he says, kissing the back of Eric’s neck. “C’mon, play hooky.”

“If I go home with you right now,” Eric says, “I’m just gonna fall asleep. But if I stay here, I can get a little more work done, and then I’ll come get you for dinner.”

Vince knows that’s the best offer he’ll get. “OK, fine,” he says. He reaches for his pants. “We can just meet you.”

“Nah,” Eric says, turning around, and he puts his hands on Vince’s waist. “Not with the guys. You and me. Dinner. Anywhere you want to go, my treat.”

“Yeah?” Eric nods, and Vince grins. “Like a real date, huh?” He can’t help it; he’s got some post-sex sappiness going on. “All right. Sounds nice. You’re on.”

“Good,” Eric says. “Now put your clothes on, or I’m never gonna get any work done.”

That night, they go to a new hot bistro that Vince read about in  _The L.A.ist_ , and over a bottle of expensive barrolo (the price of which doesn’t phase Eric at all, another side effect of the Harvey job), they talk quietly about coming out. Ari’s not in favor, but Eric says it’s something they should think about after  _Coaster_  comes out in the summer. “We already have the Cuarón film up for you, we’ll get at least one more, and, I don’t know, man. The climate’s changing. I think, as long as we’re, uh, as long as things are going good —”

“Which they will be,” Vince says, clinking his glass to Eric’s.

“— then people aren’t gonna make that big a deal out of it. People like a scandal, and Harvey’s right, he says there’s not much scandalous about two guys being happy together.”

Vince raises an eyebrow. “You told Harvey?”

“Oh,” Eric says, and he blushes a little. “Yeah. Uh, last week, he overheard me on the phone with you, I guess.”

“How’d he take it?”

“He respects loyalty,” Eric says, shrugging. “He was really decent about it.”

“Actually decent, or Harvey decent?”

“Both. I mean, there was some cursing, but in general he said, ‘Whatever works for you.’” He grabs the bottle and refills both of their glasses. “Though he told me I’d better never think about working with you on a movie again.”

Vince rolls his eyes. “We work pretty good together, though.”

“We may have too much pleasure now to be mixing business in,” Eric says, but he’s smiling. “So what do you think, should we talk to Ari?”

“There’s no pleasure in that at all,” Vince says. “But if you think it’s time, then yeah.”

Eric shakes his head. “Vin, I can’t make this decision for you,” he says. “It’s your career on the line.”

“And yours,” Vince says.

Eric shrugs. “I’m not a big name. You are. Nobody cares who I fuck.”

“Except me,” Vince says. “I have a vested interest.” Eric smirks. “No, seriously, E, you know I don’t care about the toys and all that. I got into this because I like it, because it makes me happy. And you make me happy, too, so — seems like a good plan. Plus, advice like this is why I pay you, right?”

Eric’s still smiling. “You keep listening to everything I say, this is gonna work out beautifully.”

“Yeah, well, why have a mind of my own when I can get yours so cheap?” He offers his glass for a toast, and says, “To us, E.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

The next day, a little hungover, they go to see Ari. Eric’s called Shauna in , too, so they’re facing not just one but two unhappy faces as they — well, as Eric broaches the topic of coming out.

“I knew you were working too much, but I didn’t think you’d actually gone crazy. Has Harvey dropped you on your head a few too many times?” Ari says. “No. No way, no how, not any time soon.”

“Let’s pretend,” Eric says, “that I’m not asking you, I’m telling you.”

“Is Vince telling me?” Ari asks. “Because, excuse me, Eric, but I could give a fuck what you’re telling me.”

“Is that so? You really want to piss me off, Ari?” There’s a strange, steely challenge in Eric’s eye, more than his usual Ari face-off bluster. “You know how many agents I talk to in a week, now? You know how many of them would be more than happy to take our business?”

“You know how many of them are going to give you the fucking time of day after People runs a cover story calling you a cocksucking starfucker?” Ari spreads his hands out in front of him like a shield, like he’s distancing himself from the words. “I’m just saying, I don’t think your phone’s gonna be ringing off the hook.”

Eric shakes his head. “Fuck you, first of all, and second, they’re gonna have to talk to me, because I represent money, and that’s the only thing that anyone here really cares about, right? This whole song-and-dance about being friends and wanting what’s best — you don’t actually believe any of that, do you. It’s the fucking paycheck for you, and it always has been.”

“Guys —” Shauna says, and Vince leans forward, ready to interject as well.

“That’s not entirely fair, E, and excuse me if I’m not willing to take notes on clean living from Harvey fucking Weingard’s step-and-fetch it.”

“Take this note, then,” Eric says. “You know who I talked to last week? James fucking Cameron.”

Ari gets very quiet, and Vince looks between his suddenly blank face and Eric’s terrible, angry expression. “What’s going on? What’d he say?” Vince asks.

Eric says, “He wanted you for Aquaman. Called Ari on his way out of town at Sundance, and Ari had to turn him down, because we were committed to Tapping the Source. You were at the top of a very short list — the only other guy at that point was James Franco, who, by the way, is repped out of MGA.” Eric actually shakes his finger. “You fucking knew. You had to know —”

“I had no idea —”

“You had to know,” Eric says, his voice still hard. “You knew, and you pushed this, anyway.”

“You got the fucking meeting with Harvey.”

“And you told us Cameron was there for other guys,” Eric says.

“What was I supposed to do? We’d already had the press conference, we were verbally committed —”

“You know as well as I do that none of that would’ve meant shit at that point,” Eric says. “We could have pulled out that day and lost nothing.”

“Harvey would have —”

“You fucked us because you’re afraid of Harvey, is that it?” Eric asks. He falls back against the couch and crosses his arms, managing to look utterly triumphant and disgusted at the same time. “Chickenshit bastard, at least be honest about your motives.”

Ari rubs his face with both hands. “Vinnie,” he says, “look. You gotta know, you gotta remember, I wanted Aquaman for you. I was crazy about that movie, I —”

“You said Tapping the Source was our only move.”

He nods. “And it wasn’t a bad move, was it? Academy Award Nominated —”

Vince stands up and paces behind the couch. OK, sure,  _Tapping the Source_  was a great experience, and he’s glad he did it. All things being equal, though, it took him a while to bounce back from Cameron not — from thinking that Cameron didn’t want him as Aquaman. And while he’s proud of the work he’s done since, he knows that he’d be playing on an entirely different field if he was the star of James Cameron’s once-every-ten-years action-superhero blockbuster. He’d probably have  _Medellin_  nailed down, for one.

He turns and looks at Ari, who still has his hands held out. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I thought it would just be salt in the wound, at that point. Tapping the Source was a sure thing. I didn’t lie to you about that. And it is my job, Vince, to protect you from taking crazy risks. We didn’t know what Cameron was thinking; that could’ve gone either way.”

“Bull-fucking-sh—”

“E,” Vince says, and Eric glares but stops talking.

“Vince, I am sorry,” Ari says. “But all of this — it doesn’t mean that I’m not looking out for you. I am. I always have been. And I’m telling you, man, that coming out — it’s not a good idea. Not right now. Give it some time, figure out if you’re serious. I mean, hell, I’ve been married 15 years, I’m still not sure I’d put the wife’s name on the front of US Weekly. You know?”

Vince takes a deep breath. “I believe you, Ari,” he says, because he does, at least in some ways. He doesn’t think Ari is _just_  after the money — there’s also fame and glory to be had. Really, though, he doesn’t think Ari is as evil as Eric seems to, and all things considered, he can’t fault him totally. Vince said OK to  _Tapping the Source_ , and so did Eric at the time. “OK? I do. The Cameron thing, let’s call it water under the bridge, unless he’s got something new coming up —”

“And then you’re at the top of the list and I don’t sleep until you’re headlining,” Ari says, and Vince nods.

“But you’re wrong about the rest,” Vince says. He drops his hand onto Eric’s shoulder. “We’re doing this,” he says. “At or after the premiere. You pick. Me, I’d like to take E as my date.”

He’s glad he can’t see Eric’s face, because there’s probably surprise there, and maybe some blushing, but it’s gratifying to see both Ari’s and Shauna’s mouths drop open across from him. Shauna, surprisingly, recovers first.

“Official, walk-the-red-carpets date, or he’s meeting you inside date?”

Vince shrugs. “There’s a difference?”

“What she’s asking,” Ari says, “is, are you doing press about it, or are the cameras just gonna catch you sucking face when they open the limo door?”

“Jesus,” Eric mutters.

“Well, that’s why we’ve come to talk to you,” Vince says. He takes his seat on the couch again, close to Eric, and smiles. “So what do you think?”

They finally agree to keep it low-key at the premiere — Eric won’t walk the carpet with him, which seems to be a relief to everyone but Vince — but they also agree to an interview before the movie premieres, so that the news cycle will print it after opening weekend but at around that time.

In the car on the way home, Vince says, “Why didn’t you tell me that stuff about Cameron? How long have you known?”

“I really only found out last week,” Eric says. “I ran into Emily on set.”

“You saw Emily?” Vince twists in his seat, watching Eric intently, feeling instantly — it’s not exactly worry, and it’s not exactly jealousy, but it’s something right in between.

Eric nods. “That’s sort of why I didn’t mention it.”

“Uh —”

“Not because — Christ, nothing happened. Just, it was awkward anyway, and I didn’t want you to worry or anything. Plus, I don’t know, I guess I was sort of waiting to cool off on the Cameron thing. I wanted to talk to Ari alone, but then today — he was just getting under my skin.” He turns briefly to face Vince while they’re stopped at a light. “You took it pretty well.”

Vince shrugs. “It would’ve been awesome to work with Cameron.”

“Yeah,” Eric says. “Well, Emily said he was really impressed, so maybe he’ll keep you in mind.”

“Maybe.” They start rolling again. “Where do you think we’d be, if we’d waited for Aquaman?”

Eric shrugs. “I don’t know. They’re turning it into a big franchise, the second one’s already filming, I guess. I hear Austin’s getting six for the second, maybe ten for the third if the numbers pan out. But Michael Bay’s directing.”

“Ugh,” Vince says, and Eric nods.

“I think we’d be playing on a different level,” he says. “But, if things go right with Coaster, I don’t know. Maybe it won’t matter. Why, what do you think?”

Vince sighs. “I think, if we’d done Aquaman, right now I’d be married to Mandy Moore.”

Eric laughs. “Right.”

Vince looks over. “I’m kind of serious,” he says, and Eric glances his way. “We had a thing. A long time ago, on  _A Walk to Remember_. She — she’s the only other person I’ve ever been in love with.”

“In love with,” Eric echoes. “The only other — like you are with me?”

“Yeah,” Vince says.

Eric’s laughter this time is stunned. “Jesus, it’s like getting kissed and kicked in the balls at the same time,” he says. “You and Mandy Moore, huh?”

“I was kind of serious about her.”

“First I heard of it.”

Vince shrugs. He remembers the desperation he felt on that set, how all he wanted, all the time, was to be around Mandy, with Mandy, making Mandy laugh or cry out or just want him as much as he wanted her. It’s a little embarrassing, even now, to remember how pathetic he was about the whole thing. “It wasn’t exactly something I wanted to talk about with you,” Vince says.

“Yeah? Why not?”

Vince mimes holding up a phone. “Hey, E, how’s New York? Yeah, I think I’m in love with this girl Mandy. How do I know? It’s like the same feeling I get when you’re around, only I get to fuck her.”

Eric’s grinning. “I would’ve never let you marry Mandy Moore,” he says, making the turn into their driveway. He turns the car off, but neither of them moves to get out yet.

Vince says, “You know what, in the end, I think I’m glad we missed it. Because without Australia — who knows where we’d be now? I’m pretty fucking grateful we took  _Tapping the Source_ , all things considered.” He squeezes Eric’s shoulder, and Eric nods.

“Good point,” he says. As they climb out, though, he calls over the top of his car, “Don’t expect me to send Ari flowers or anything, though.”

 

* * *

 

The next few months move fast. Vince starts up with a trainer again to get in shape for the Cuarón movie, and Eric’s working non-stop on several projects for Harvey. He tells Vince confidentially (“swear to me, not a word to anyone, not even fucking Drama,”) that Harvey’s entertaining some buy-out deal from Paramount, and so he’s in a rush to get as many movies into production as possible to maximize their worth. This, in turn, makes Eric so busy that Harvey hires Eric an assistant, Steph. Vince feels like he sees her almost as much as he sees Eric, but that’s better than the last few months, where Harvey’s been leaving messages on their answering machine. Turtle and Johnny almost called the cops after the last message, which started with, “I’m gonna start with your mother. Then your mother’s mother. Then I’m gonna come over, I’m gonna get your boyfriend —”

“Jesus, now he has a problem with me?” Vince asked.

“He has a problem with everyone,” Eric said, hitting erase. “I’ll talk to him.”

It’s after the talk that Eric gets his assistant, and Harvey stops calling the house — though possibly that’s because they change the phone number, too. In fact, sometimes Vince could probably imagine that Harvey doesn’t exist, except that when Eric’s spent too much time with him, his jackets smell like Harvey’s cigars.

Around the time Steph comes on board, something goes very wrong for Ari at his agency, and one night Eric comes home and says that Ari’s been fired.

“You’re kidding me,” Vince says, setting down his Wii controller.

Eric shakes his head. “Harvey’s been in a good mood all week, I knew something was up,” he says, taking a seat next to Vince.

“Jeez, I wonder what that means for me,” Johnny says. “Is Adam still with Terence’s place?”

“I don’t know, Drama, but I can find out.” Eric looks tired, and Vince puts an arm around him. “Ari’s gonna come by tomorrow,” he says.

“Yeah, wow, he must be taking it hard.”

Eric snorts. “He got fired for trying to start a coup, Vince,” he says. “He’ll have his own shop up in the next few weeks, plus he’s gonna get a huge settlement from Terrence.” 

“Wow, Ari getting fired,” Turtle says, and he shakes his head a little before passing over the bong. “It’s like finding out Santa Claus is replaceable.”

“Ari doesn’t believe in Santa Claus,” Johnny says.

“I would hope not, at his age,” Eric says, then takes a hit.

“I meant, Ari’s Jewish, they don’t celebrate Christmas.”

“Not this year they don’t,” Turtle says. 

Vince takes another hit and lets the smoke escape kind of slow. “I totally can’t believe Ari got fired,” he says, “and yet, I totally can.”

That night, when it’s just the two of them in bed, Eric says, “Before Ari comes by tomorrow, we should talk about what you wanna do.”

“What do you mean, what I want to do?” Eric keeps looking at him. “What?”

“I mean, do you want to stick with Ari, or with the agency?”

Vince draws back. “That’s a no-brainer, right? Ari’s been our guy since day one. I mean, come on.”

“Ari’s not the only game in town,” Eric says. “I know he’s done some good stuff for you, but Vin, he’s also done some seriously fucking bad stuff. The guy’s kind of a loose cannon.”

“Yeah, but he’s our cannon,” Vince says. “I’m a loyal guy, E.”

Eric smiles and shrugs. “OK, OK,” he says. “Tomorrow we make Ari’s day.”

Eric has a meeting across town the next morning, so Vince is alone when Ari comes over. He pleads his case while Vince tries and fails to make him a latte from their new fancy coffee machine, and then Vince turns around and says, “Jesus, Ari, of course I’m gonna stick with you.”

Ari’s head bows just briefly, and he says, “Thank you, Vince, that’s what I wanted to hear.”

Vince shrugs. He offers Ari a glass of water, instead, and Ari says, “Where’s your fucking houseboy, anyway?”

“Turtle?” Ari rolls his eyes. “E’s got some meeting.”

Ari’s eyes narrow. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that that’s a euphemism for ‘off fucking someone else.’”

“Ari.”

“OK, OK.” He raises his hands up. “Just — are you guys still thinking you’re gonna do this thing, after Coaster?”

Vince shrugs. “Why wouldn’t we?”

“Just E’s a lot more known, now. I thought maybe a taste of the big life might’ve changed the little man’s mind.”

“We’re fine,” Vince says. “And we’re still together and we’re still planning to come out. If that’s a problem —”

“No problem,” Ari says. “Far be it from me to have a problem. The customer is always right at The Gold Standard.”

Vince grimaces. “Is that really your new company?”

“Don’t tell anyone,” he says, and slaps Vince on the shoulder before he heads out.

That night, Eric gets home late and falls next to Vince on the couch, and Vince tells him about Ari coming by. He mentions what he said about coming out, and Eric gets a weird look on his face before he nods, fast, and takes a sip of beer. 

“Yeah, of course,” he says, almost too fast. “We’re still on.”

Vince rubs his neck. “You’re nervous, aren’t you?”

Eric shrugs. “It’s a little different now, I gotta admit,” he says.

“More people care who you’re fucking now,” Vince says, nodding. “Welcome to the club.”

“Hey, if you’re ready to stand up and say it, man, I’m right there. OK?”

Vince grins and kisses him. “OK.”

Before too long, just as Eric predicted, Ari does have his own agency up and going. He’s the same old Ari, just in a new office — a nice new office, in fact. It’s nicer even than Eric’s new office at Harvey’s place, though Vince would never say that to either of them. Eric’s been promoted to some new important title that he says doesn’t really mean anything, but Vince can tell he’s proud of it, because he breaks it out on the phone when he’s making calls. It came with some kind of raise, too, which Eric tells Vince he’s putting in the bank toward their planned vacation that summer spring. “Reunion tour,” he says, and Vince grins.


	3. Chapter 3

A week before the  _Coaster_  premiere, Vince wakes up in the middle of the night. At first, he’s not sure why, and then he hears the toilet flush in the master bathroom. A minute later, Eric creeps across the room and sinks onto the bed, and for a minute he just sits there, kind of hunched over. Vince reaches out and touches his back.

“You OK?”

“I dunno,” Eric says. His voice is gravelly.

“You sick?”

“I was,” he says. He tips back into the bed, and Vince moves his hand to Eric’s arm. His skin is clammy, sweaty. “Maybe something I ate.”

Vince rubs his back. Eric didn’t really eat anything much at dinner, though, just an egg roll off Vince’s plate. “You need anything? Want some water or Aspirin?”

“I took something already,” he says. 

Vince helps Eric get the covers up to his shoulders, then he puts his arms around him and can feel that Eric has a fever; he’s sweaty and cold at the same time. Vince isn’t sure what to do. “You want me to call someone?”

“No,” Eric says firmly. “I’m fine, just need some sleep.”

Morning is only four hours away for Eric. Vince wakes up to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, one hand pressed against his stomach, the other holding a shiny black shoe. “Hey, what’re you doing?” Vince asks.

“Going to work,” Eric says. He makes a terrible little gasping noise as he bends to tie his shoe, and then another little groan when he stands up.

“No, seriously,” Vince says. “You’re sick. You look like death.”

“I kind of feel like it,” he admits. When he turns a little, Vince can see his pale face. “But I’ve gotta go. Big deal to sign today.”

Vince gets up and follows Eric out of the room. He’s moving slowly and swallowing a lot. Vince grabs him gently by the shoulders as they pass the kitchen. “Eric, I want you to stay home,” he says. “Think of it this way: we’ve got that interview coming up. You should rest up for that.”

Eric nods. “I’m just gonna go for this one meeting,” he says. “I promise. If I still feel shitty, I’ll come home at lunch.”

Vince frowns, but once Eric says he’s already called Steph to pick him up, he relents. He sends him off with a cup of tea, then wakes up Turtle. If Eric’s gonna be gone for the morning, he might as well get his gym time in. It sounds like his afternoon will be full of caretaking.

Just as he’s changing from his workout, Turtle walks into the locker room. Vince pulls a clean shirt on. “What’s up?” he asks, because Turtle looks hassled.

“Steph’s been trying to call you. She just got through to me. E’s at the hospital.”

“What?” Vince puts a hand out to his locker to steady himself. “What happened?”

“They don’t know, they think maybe his appendix or something. She said the doctor’s seeing him now. I guess he got real sick at work so they took him to the E.R. and he’s getting admitted.”

“Jesus Christ,” Vince says. He feels shaky. “But he’s OK, right, I mean –“

“I think so,” Turtle says. “I don’t really know what’s going on. Nobody does. Get your shoes on, we’ll go right over.”

At the hospital, after he hears the same know-nothing story from Steph, he finds a doctor. “You’re his partner?” the doctor asks, and Vince nods without even thinking. “Good, he’s been asking for you.” He leads Vince back through a maze of curtained-off waiting rooms, then out into a hall and down a narrow white corridor. For a moment, Vince is really afraid they’re headed to the morgue or something, but instead they stop in front of a patient’s room door. “In here,” he says. “We’re just keeping him comfortable and out of the way until his surgery.”

Vince swallows hard. “Surgery?” he whispers.

“We’re going to remove his gall bladder,” the doctor says. “Don’t worry. It’s pretty routine, won’t even hardly leave a scar.”

Vince has to take a second to get over that image: Eric, scar, surgery, no, he thinks, but he manages to nod. “It’s OK if I —-”

“Of course,” the doctor says, and so Vince goes in.

Eric’s laying in bed, curled onto his side. He’s wearing a hospital gown and has a blanket pulled up to his shoulders, and he doesn’t stir until Vince touches his face. “E,” he says softly.

“Oh hey,” Eric says. His eyes slip open, and he looks sleepy, not quite with it. “Vince. You’re here.”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“I was — I’ve been telling them to call you.”

“They did. Steph did. Are you OK?”

“I’m fine,” he says. His words are a little slurred, and he reaches up and takes Vince’s hand, holds it in both of his own. “They gave me something — something kind of wonderful.”

Vince grins in spite of himself. “Yeah, were you in some pain?”

“Pretty bad,” Eric says. “But it’s OK now. Everything’s getting fixed.”

He actually feels better just hearing Eric say it. “That’s what they told me.” Vince snags a chair with his foot, drags it close to the bed, and sits without ever taking his hand away from Eric’s. “How do you feel?”

“Kind of sleepy,” Eric says. “I had some X-rays and stuff before. I might’ve — I just really wanted you to get here.”

“You got your wish,” Vince says. The door opens, and he doesn’t move his hand.

“Everything OK?” Turtle says.

“Everything’s gonna be fine,” Eric says, and Vince keeps looking at him. He looks pale, but he’s gripping Vince’s hand nice and tight. “Just fine.”

They do the surgery that night, because Eric’s gall bladder is inflamed or infected or something. The same doctor who greeted him, Dr. Yen, talks through the whole thing with Vince, but he doesn’t really understand or even try to understand anything about what’s happened. What he does understand is this: the surgery will take about an hour, they’ll only need a very small incision, Eric will be able to go home in a day or two, and then he’ll need to take it easy.

“I’ll make sure,” Vince says, and shakes Yen’s hand.

He sits with the guys in a small waiting room that’s been reserved for them so that nobody with a camera can get through. Vince talks to Ari and Shauna both, and they wish Eric the best and tell him to keep his head down, and Vince appreciates the way that neither of them freaks out when he mentions that the doctor “totally knows we’re a couple.”

Harvey arrives after Eric’s been in surgery for almost an hour, when they haven’t heard anything and Vince is already starting to worry. He really hasn’t seen that much of Harvey since they left Australia, and it occurs to him, sitting in the waiting room, that Eric’s been sheltering him. He feels a swell of affection for Eric, and then a new rush of nerves. Why haven’t they  _heard_  anything?

“He’s gonna be fine, bro,” Johnny says.

“He better be fine,” Harvey says. “The amount of money I got invested with that kid, anything goes wrong and I’m gonna own this hospital.”

“Shut up, Harvey,” Vince says, resting his head in his hands.

“You told them who he was, right? Hell, what am I saying, they probably saw you and got a pretty good idea.” He shakes his head. His hair is sticking up everywhere, and his face is, as always, pinkish red. Harvey just  _looks_  angry all the time, Vince thinks. What would it be like to face that in the mirror every day? Or in the office? “Should’ve called me, though. I don’t trust the guys here. Should’ve gone to my guy at Cedars, fucking miracle worker. My blood pressure’s down fifteen points in the last year, you believe that?”

“Yeah,” Vince says, “I believe it, because you’ve had E doing all your dirty work.”

Harvey laughs, a big, booming laugh that sounds a little evil. “Oh, whatsa matter, sweetheart, you pissed he’s working late? Jesus Christ, give me a break. E’s built for this. He’s a fucking machine, he’s a monster. He’s —”

“He’s not,” Vince insists. “And he’s gonna need some time off after this.”

“Time off? Time fucking — we got three multi-million dollar pictures starting up.”

“And he’s in surgery.”

Harvey shrugs. “I walked eight miles in the war with a bullet in my leg. I think the little fagela can sit on a fucking set.”

Vince has his mouth open to object when the door opens and Dr. Yen walks in. “He’s just fine,” he says, and Vince takes a deep, calming, grateful breath. “Everything went well. He’s in recovery right now, and I can take you to see him in a few minutes.”

“You guys fuck him up and I swear to God I’ll burn this hospital down and get you deported,” Harvey says, and Vince flinches. He stands up fast and ushers Dr. Yen into the hallway.

“I’m sorry, that’s Eric’s boss, he’s just worried,” he says, shaking the doctor’s hand again. “Thank you so much. For everything. You said I could see him?”

He eventually gets to go back to Eric, who’s groggy from the anesthesia and doesn’t seem to understand he’s there. Vince doesn’t really mind. He’s happier sitting next to Eric, holding his hand, than he was listening to Harvey be his unreasonable Harvey self, by far. He watches Eric resting and thinks when he wakes up, they should have a talk. It’s been over a year since Australia, now, and Vince is tired of never seeing Eric. He’s tired of Eric being tired. Christ, he’s in the fucking hospital. Something’s got to change. They need to schedule their getaway soon, he decides. They need to get some time to themselves.

By that evening, Eric’s alert enough to make sense, though he spends most of his time sleeping. Vince and Turtle are both camped out in the room; Johnny and Larissa went to get dinner. Eric stirs around eight and asks for something to drink, and Vince, whose foot has fallen asleep while they’ve been waiting, goes out to the nurse’s station to ask what he can have.

“Clear liquids,” the nurse says. “We can get him something. Water? Sprite?”

“I’ll get it,” Vince says, “but thank you.” Really, he just needs to stretch his legs a little, and the walk to the vending area near the elevators should do nicely. He gets a can of Sprite for Eric, then decides to take the longer way back to his room, past the reception desk for the floor, just to wake up his foot a little more.

As he rounds the corner, he hears a familiar voice.

Yelling.

“I could fucking own you!” Harvey’s shouting at a frightened nurse. “I could fucking own your entire family, I could —”

“Harvey!” When he turns at Vince’s yell, the nurse scampers away. “What the fuck?”

“Someone in this goddmaned place has a big fucking mouth, that’s what the fuck! I got a call from fucking Variety asking about Eric having surgery, and who the fuck is allowed to release that information? No one!” His voice is like a roar; Vince glances around, hoping there aren’t any patients in the rooms nearby.

“Calm down,” Vince says, “I’m sure — I mean, maybe it wasn’t the staff, maybe someone just saw —”

“Do you know what it does for me to have articles out about this right now? Right fucking now, when I’m depending on Eric like this, when I’ve got a goddamned merger in the works, to have a chink in the armor?”

Vince crosses his arms, still holding the drink. “It’s not like he’s in rehab. He’s sick.”

“He’s sick, and now half the fucking town thinks he has cancer or goddamned AIDS or some shit, and I’m trying to get people to trust me, meanwhile, with millions of dollars and movies and they’re hearing my number one guy is out of commission? Do you get this at all, does anything penetrate your pretty little brain or should I hire a guy to make the words smaller?”

Everyone on the floor is staring at them — a clump of nurses to his left, a clot of patients to the right. Vince can feel his face heating up. What he wants to do is run; what he wants to do is call Eric, or Ari, or somebody to deal with this monster. But there’s no one around but people who are even more scared than he is. “Fuck you, Harvey,” he says.

“He needs to get out of here tonight!”

“You’re insane! The doctor says he has to stay through at least tomorrow night, at least twenty-four hours of observation.”

Harvey snorts. “Observation, yeah, by the goddamned Hollywood Reporter. What a fucking piece of work you are. You want to ruin his career?”

“I’m way more worried about his life,” Vince says. Two burly security guards are approaching, and Vince steps back, keeping his hands high and clear. “Look, just don’t fucking bother him for a while, Harvey.”

“What the — what the fuck is this? What the —”

“Sir, you’re disturbing the patients, we’re gonna have to ask you —”

Vince hurries away, because he doesn’t want to get caught up in whatever potential assault lawsuit is about to happen. He’s breathing fast when he reaches Eric’s room, where the door is still halfway open. He gets himself under control, purposely not looking around in case any of the witnesses are still about, and walks in.

“Here you go, sorry it took so long,” Vince says, setting the can on Eric’s little over-bed table.

Eric puts one hand around the can, then says, “Do you mind opening it?” Vince reaches up to do that, and Eric says, “Is it the drugs, or did I hear you fighting with Harvey?”

Vince pops the can top and puts the can back in Eric’s hand. “Don’t worry about Harvey now,” he says. 

“I’m not worried about Harvey,” Eric says. “I’m worried about you. Don’t fight with him, Vin. He’s crazy.”

Vince rolls his eyes. “If he’s so crazy, why do you keep working with him?”

“Because I can handle Harvey.”

“And I can’t?” Eric raises an eyebrow. He takes a sip of his soda, and his hand is shaking a little. This isn’t the time or the place to argue with him over what Vince can and cannot handle, he decides. “Listen, don’t worry. He wasn’t arguing with me, he was arguing with the nurses. He wants them to let you go tonight.”

Eric laughs, then groans. “Fucking Harvey,” he says. “Jesus, hey, can you call Steph, make sure she gets the Dead Quiet paperwork to him? He’s probably freaked out about that, I should have —”

“There’s nothing you should have done or should be doing other than taking it easy,” Vince says. “Seriously, I’ll pay somebody to strap you to the bed if I have to.”

“Kinky,” Eric says with a little smile, and Vince doesn’t miss Turtle’s head whipping around from where he’s trying to look like he’s watching TV and ignoring them. “OK. Let me finish my drink, at least, then I’ll go back to relaxing.”

The doctors release Eric the next afternoon, right on schedule, and despite a second round of inquisition from Harvey, they’re very nice about it.

“ _Did_  someone leak my medical information?” Eric asks after they’re home and he’s all settled in their bed.

Vince shrugs. “I doubt it. I called Ari and Shauna to let them know what was up, so I’m guessing that’s where the story came from or was confirmed.” Eric groans. “What? Are you hurting?”

“Harvey is never gonna forgive you if he finds that out,” Eric says.

“What’s his deal, anyway? He acts like you can’t even take a fucking sick day.”

“I can’t,” Eric says. “We’re at a critical juncture in the merger deal, we —”

“Critical? Critical like you were just in surgery critical, or like millionaire Harvey’s gonna lose a couple bucks critical?”

Eric rolls his eyes. “You just — you gotta know how it is for him. He built that whole company on three rules: every day is a work day; every project can be done; no one can save you but you.”

“Every day can’t be a work day,” Vince says, stretching out next to Eric. “There are laws.”

Eric smirks, a sleepy, painkiller-saturated smirk. “Says you.”

“I’m right,” Vince says. He touches Eric’s cheek, and Eric’s eyes close obediently. “And you are gonna be taking some time off, pal.” He rushes ahead, talking as fast as he can think. “Actually, you know what, I was thinking we should go on vacation.”

“Vacation?” Eric asks, his eyes opening again.

“Yeah. Reunion tour, right? You’re out of commission for a while, anyway, why don’t we just get out of town?”

Eric touches his arm. “Vin, that’s a good idea, but if we’re going away together, I want to be able to enjoy more than just room service, you know?” Vince blinks, then gets it. “But I hear you, you’re worried. I’ll be good, OK? I promise, I’m not even thinking about work right now.”

“OK.”

For the next week, it’s almost like Before Harvey. They lounge around the house, Eric recuperating, Vince bringing him whatever he wants or needs and spending a lot of time stretched out with him on the couch or in their bed. He relents from his no-business-at-all position to allow Eric to take some phone calls and do some low-impact reading, but he doesn’t let him go in to the office, and the world doesn’t stop turning. It’s nice — no, it’s better than nice, it’s the way things should be. When he says this to Eric, though, Eric rolls his eyes.

“We both gotta work sometime,” he says.  


“Maybe I could get my gallbladder out next,” Vince says. “I don’t need it, do I?”

Eric’s smile is affectionate. “You’re a moron.”

He’s sore enough that the premiere of  _Coaster_  is out for him, so Vince goes on his own. The movie opens big, though not quite as big as they would’ve hoped — it doesn’t break any records, but comes in at the expected $92 million take. The studio takes him out to dinner Sunday night to celebrate, and afterwards he gets a car home, where he finds Eric sitting up, waiting — and reading scripts.

“Nuh-uh,” Vince says, taking the stack out of Eric’s hands and tossing it to the floor. “No reading for you tonight, pal.”

Eric smiles, but not fully. “I might be too sore to do anything else,” he says, but that doesn’t stop a little making out.

One topic they don’t talk much about is coming out. Shauna comes over for lunch one day and explains that rumors are flying since the hospital, but no one can really prove anything, at least not right now. “It’s like Jodie Foster,” she says. “Until you actually say the words, no one’s gonna report on it. So if you want to stall for a while, we’re in an OK place.”

Eric nods. “I know we talked about doing this now, but — I wouldn’t mind being back at full fighting weight when this comes out. Plus the timing’s not as good anymore, with the projects we’ve got coming up.”

Vince shrugs, though he hears Ari’s voice in the back of his head. But Eric really is still recuperating. “Whatever you think,” he says. “So I just refuse to talk about it?”

“That’s the plan,” Shauna confirms. “And so will I.”

Eric goes back to work the next week, and though they’ve agreed in advance that he’ll take it easy — Vince is terrified he’s going to pop a stitch or something and wind up bleeding to death — he doesn’t get home until after seven.

“I know, I know,” he says, walking in the door. “But you would not believe the correspondence I had to catch up on.”

“Get in bed right now,” Vince says, pointing down the hall, and Eric goes willingly. Vince follows, and he can tell that Eric’s exhausted because he sits on the edge of the bed just to take off his shirt. “Do I have to have a word with Harvey?”

Eric looks up, his expression tired and wary and full of dread. “Promise me you won’t,” he says.

Vince sits next to him, and Eric leans against him. “E, I’m worried.”

“It’s the first day back.”

“I mean, I’m worried, and I’ve been worried. You work too much.”

Eric sighs. After a pause, he says, “I know. But I’m fucking drained. Can we just not talk about this tonight?”

“OK,” Vince agrees, and kisses Eric’s neck to seal the deal.

They don’t end up talking about it again for the rest of the week, because Eric’s always so run down when he gets home that Vince can’t bring himself to bother him. Then, when he’s feeling a little better, Vince broaches the topic again, and Eric says, “I know, and I was thinking about it. We still haven’t taken our reunion tour, have we?”

“You have a plan?”

Eric nods. “I was thinking next week. Before you start up on the film again, and before my new project starts. What do you think?”

“Yeah,” Vince says. “Absolutely. Yes. Where are we going?”

“I thought somewhere close. Less time traveling, more time, uh, vacationing. There’s a resort in Mexico that Steven’s been talking about, maybe? I’ll figure it out,” Eric says. “You trust me, right?”

“I do,” Vince says.

The night before they’re supposed to leave, they go out to dinner with Turtle and Johnny. Johnny and Larissa are planning their own getaway that weekend, to Vegas, and Turtle’s tagging along — with Larissa’s best friend Melissa playing the fourth. “Everyone all paired up, finally,” Vince says, and Turtle rolls his eyes.

“Everybody keeps talking about this girl’s great personality,” he says. “I think I’d rather be tagging along on your vacation, at least there’d be beach beauties around.”

“Yeah, sorry, man,” Vince says, “but I want E all to myself.”

Eric laughs. “Put ten on red for us,” he says.

They all head back to the house after dinner, because Johnny says he’s got some kind of going-away surprise waiting for them. They find the front door cracked open and hear a terrible whine from Arnold within. Before Eric can call security, Johnny charges in, and after that, there’s no choice but to follow him. Vince keeps a hand on Eric’s shoulder, not sure what they’re going to find. If someone’s gonna kill them all the night before his big vacation, he’s gonna be pissed.

The invader isn’t a killer after all — it’s Dom, an old friend from the neighborhood. Vince is thrilled to see him, particularly because Dom looks so, well, good — strong, cleaner than he was in high school, and happy to see them all. They haven’t talked in several years, since Dom went up on charges that started from possession of Vince’s pot. Vince isn’t a worrier, but over the years, he’s felt some definite guilt about that whole situation. Now, seeing Dom in front of him, looking like and acting like exactly the same old guy, makes Vince feel more relieved than he would’ve guessed.

They hang out that night eating what’s left of Drama’s special sausage and talk through the last couple of years, and then Dom says, “So what are you fuckers up to, anyway? What’s a guy do for fun around here?”

“We’re going to Vegas this weekend,” Turtle says.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, you gotta come,” Johnny says. “You’ll love it, I got this killer suite.”

Dom looks over at Vince. “OK if I crash your party?”

Vince shifts. “I, actually, it’s just Johnny and Turtle going. E and I are going to Mexico for the week. ”

“What the fuck is in Mexico? Some movie thing?”

Vince looks over at Eric, who’s looking down. He can guess what he’s thinking about: Tiny Thompson, a kid in their class, who got his ass kicked freshman year after rumors went around about him and some other boy behind the bleachers. He never came back to school. Afterward, Dom, who might have been involved, said, “Fucking faggot deserved it, you know? You get what’s comin’ to you.”

“Just a vacation,” Eric says. His voice is the steely, even voice he uses when he’s talking to Harvey.

“You mean to tell me,” Dom says, “these guys are gonna go to Vegas, fucking Vegas with the showgirls and all that stuff I seen on TV, and you’re going to Mexico to — what, hang out with E?” He shakes his head. “On my first weekend out here, you’re just gonna run off?”

Vince looks over at Eric, and Eric meets his eye, nods just faintly. “Nah,” Vince says, “we should — we should all go, right? Make a weekend of it.”

“That’s it,” Dom says. “That’s what I like to hear.”

That night, Dom goes up to the guest room, and Eric pauses on the way back to Vince’s room.

“Maybe I shouldn’t,” he says. “Until we, uh, get a chance to talk to him?”  


“Oh,” Vince says, stopping in the hall. Then he shrugs. “He probably won’t even notice.”

Eric nods, but looks wary, and he’s jumpy as they settle in to bed. Vince rests his head on Eric’s shoulder. “Hey, I’m sorry about the trip,” he says. “But it is his first weekend.”

“Yeah, I know,” Eric says. “It’s probably better. I shouldn’t be taking time off right now, anyway.”

Vince looks up. “You’re gonna come to Vegas, though?”

“I don’t know,” he says.

“Seriously, you’d rather hang out with Harvey than with Dom?”

Eric smirks. “You know, we ought to introduce them. I bet they’d get on great.”

“There’s a scary thought.” Vince slings an arm around Eric’s chest. “Look, he’s gonna be all distracted by hookers and slot machines anyway. We’ll get plenty of time together. Just come, all right?”

“All right,” Eric says, kissing his shoulder. “But I’m gonna bring some work.”

That weekend works out fine. Johnny’s girlfriend meets Dom at breakfast and then takes a raincheck on the rest of the weekend, so it’s just the five guys. Eric spends some time working and some time in Vince’s suite, and no one seems the wiser. When they get back to town on Monday, Eric goes right to a business dinner, and Vince and the guys settle in for a night of pizza and video games.

“So Vince,” Dom says as they’re watching Turtle box a computer character into the ground, “the guys tell me you and E are fucking each other now.”

Vince nearly chokes on a sip of beer. “They do?” He looks at Johnny, who’s got such an innocent look on his face that Vince knows immediately who spilled the beans. “Huh.”

“So’s it true?”

“Yeah,” Vince says, setting his beer on the coffee table. Dom just nods, not looking away from the TV. “You got a problem with it?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I always used to think it was pretty fucking disgusting, when we were back home. But I knew a lotta guys in the joint who — you know, swung that way, but that was prison. This ain’t prison, so — it’s kinda weirder.” Now he looks over. “You do this with other guys?”

“Some,” Vince says, and he can see Turtle’s head whip around in his peripheral vision. Yeah, they never really talked about that.

“Yeah? Seriously? ‘Cuz if it’s just E — I don’t know, it makes it different.” He looks back down at his drink. “Let me ask you something, though, you let them fuck your ass?”

“Jesus,” Johnny says, and Turtle drops his controller. Vince can feel his face starting to flame.

“Vin, please don’t answer that,” Turtle says. “I mean, seriously, no one cares, no one wants to know, all right?”

“What, I can’t ask? Guy says he’s a fag, I can’t be curious about how it works? In prison it matters who’s doing who, you know?”

“Yeah, well, here we’re a little more courteous,” Johnny says.

“Christ, I’m sorry,” Dom says, holding up his hands. “I didn’t know about Hollywood rules.”

“Whatever,” Vince says. “Guys, it’s fine. Let’s just drop it, all right?”

“Yeah, fine, fine,” Dom says. “Hey, is it my turn yet or what?”

He gets involved in the game, and in talking about that they avoid an awkward silence, at least. After a while, Vince stands up and points to the kitchen, like he’s just gonna get another drink. He doesn’t need another drink, though — he needs a minute away from that scene. He wishes Eric were around, and then he tries to imagine what his reaction would have been, and he can guess: he and Dom would already been punching each other out. So this is better, him standing alone in the kitchen wishing he could erase that whole conversation from his mind, because at least no one’s going to end up in the hospital.

Dom comes in after a while and starts making himself a new drink that’s mostly vodka. Vince makes himself busy at the refrigerator, staring at a bunch of leftovers that don’t look good at all.

“Listen,” Dom says, getting a handful of ice from the dispenser, “I didn’t mean to seem all intolerant before.” Vince smiles at the word, which sounds strange coming from Dom. Johnny must have been after him, he thinks. “I just known you guys a long time, and it’s a surprise, is all. But if that’s the way it works for you —”

“It does,” Vince says, closing the refrigerator. “He’s my boyfriend, Dom, OK?”

“Yeah. And Turtle says not everybody knows yet, so, I just wanted to say, don’t worry, I can keep a secret. I mean, you know that, right?”

Vince nods, and it doesn’t escape him that Dom might mean all those years ago, in Queens, when the cops said, “Who does this belong to?” and Dom took the rap and never told anybody. “I appreciate that,” Vince says. “I know.”

But it’s still weird, the next day, and the next, and Vince always has this feeling when he’s around Dom like he’s being watched or judged or both. He doesn’t like it, and once he tells Eric about the conversation, Eric doesn’t like it either. But Vince owes the guy. “He’s just gotta find his way,” Vince tells Eric one night. Eric’s changing for bed; Vince is already waiting for him there. As per usual, it’s the first time they’ve had alone all day.

“He’s about to fucking find his way into my fist,” Eric says. “The guy’s a nightmare. You heard what he called Ari.”

“I know,” Vince says. “I don’t like it either, E. But he just got out of prison. That can fuck a guy up.”

“He was a fuck up long before that,” Eric grumbles.

“Hey,” Vince says, sitting up. “E — I owe him. It was my fucking pot he was holding.”

Eric rolls his eyes. “If it hadn’t been that, it would’ve been something else. And it wasn’t the pot that got him — it was hitting the cop, and the priors. He was headed to jail for as long as we knew him.”

“You’re just mad he calls you E-bola.”

“No,” Eric says, sitting on the bed. He looks at Vince over his shoulder. “I’m mad he calls me fag-ola, Vince. I shouldn’t have to take that, and neither should you.”

Vince nods. He leans forward and rests his forehead on Eric’s shoulder. “I owe him,” he says, quietly. “E, please. Just put up with him a little longer, till he gets his feet back under him. I’ll get him a job, we’ll get him a place —”

“OK,” Eric says. “For you, not for him.”

“It’s not like you even see that much of him,” Vince says as Eric settles into bed. Eric’s been working every day and almost every evening lately.

“Don’t start with me,” Eric says, closing his eyes. “You want me home more, you better step up your prison rehab program.”

Vince rolls his eyes and settles onto his side, not touching Eric, and they fall asleep that way, too. In the morning, they make up before breakfast, and Eric even compliments Dom’s cooking before he leaves. He also kisses Vince on the mouth before he walks out, which is unusual but not unwelcome, and Dom doesn’t say anything rude about it. Vince starts to think maybe things will work out.

“That’s fucking it!” Eric’s saying two mornings later when Vince walks into the kitchen for breakfast.

“What’s going on?”

Dom’s standing at the counter with a big skillet of eggs in front of him, and Eric’s standing across the island, glaring at him like he might explode. Vince stands at the end of the island, looking between them. “Guys?”

“I was just asking,” Dom says, and Eric shakes his head.

“I can’t live with him any more,” Eric says, looking down the counter at Vince. “I’m not waking up to abuse, not in my own — not here.” He pushes back from the counter and grabs his bag. “I’ll see you later,” he says.

“E —” Vince says as Eric storms past him. He looks up at Dom, who shrugs and goes back to his cooking. Neither of the other two guys are around, so he can’t ask anyone else what’s happened. Vince takes a seat. “What happened?”

“Long story,” he says, and shoves some eggs onto Vince’s plate. “So whaddya wanna do today, boss?”

“Dom, you can’t keep picking fights with E,” Vince says. “I’m serious. He’s my partner, he’s not just another kid anymore.”

“Hey, I didn’t start anything,” Dom says. “That guy’s wound so fucking tight, Vin, it’s like all I gotta do is look at him wrong and suddenly he’s throwing a fit.”

Vince sighs. He knows there’s some truth there. If Eric wasn’t blowing up at Dom, it’d just be someone else. “Look, though,” he says. “We maybe — what do you think about looking for an apartment or something today? I know you don’t have a job yet or anything, but I can cover you, man. Least I can do, until we get you something going.”

It takes a little arm twisting to get over his “a man’s gotta earn his own fucking keep” pride, but eventually Dom agrees to take Vince’s money for a place to live, and he and Turtle and Vince go hunting that afternoon. Johnny, who just got a good role on a television show, joins them midday, and they go with him to his new building to sign a contract with the real estate agent.

“This is a fucking nice area,” Dom says. “I could see a guy doin’ real well, livin’ here.”

“Yeah, it’s not bad,” Turtle agrees. The real estate agent, overhearing them, asks if they want to see another unit in a neighboring building that’s about to go on the market, and Vince ends up making an offer on a three-bedroom place two streets over from Johnny’s new place. Turtle and Dom can move in at the end of the month.

Eric’s supposed to meet them for dinner, but he cancels — unsurprisingly — and that annoys Vince enough that he doesn’t mention he’s made other arrangements for Dom that night. In fact, they don’t really talk at all until two nights later, when Johnny’s out with Larissa and Turtle and Dom have gone to cruise LAX. Eric comes in around dinner time and looks around, and Vince rolls his eyes. “They’re not here,” he says, taking a seat at the dining table.

“Oh,” Eric says. “Uh, good. I wanted to talk to you.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Eric nods. “Let me go first, all right?” Vince nods. “I, uh, I made an offer on a house today.”

Vince swallows. “What?” His first thought is that Eric’s buying a place for Dom, but then he realizes, from the nervous look on Eric’s face, that’s not what’s happening at all.

“It’s a good time to own real estate,” he says in a nervous version of his businesslike tone, and Vince feels cold. “There was a place in Malibu, it’s not on the market yet, uh, one of the execs at Paramount was selling and I heard about it and —”

“You bought a house?” Eric nods. He’s not really meeting Vince’s eyes. “You’re moving out?”

“Not really,” Eric says. “No. I just thought it might be good if I — I mean, I’ve got all of this money, it doesn’t really make sense for me to be living with you, you know?”

“Except it totally does,” Vince says. “You’re my boyfriend.”

“No one knows that,” Eric says. “You know what I mean. And I — I don’t know, Vin. I wanted some place I could go, I guess, in case anything happens.”

“Happens — with us, you mean.” Eric shrugs. He’s still not looking at Vince. He feels lightheaded, because suddenly he gets what talk they’re having. Eric bought a house. Another house, a house other than Vince’s. His own place. “Jesus Christ. Je—” Vince has to put his head down in his hands.

“Hey,” Eric says, sounding startled. “Vince?” His hands rest on Vince’s shoulders.

“Are you breaking up with me?” Vince asks, barely able to get the words out.

“What? No,” Eric says, fast. “No, Vince, I wouldn’t — I swear, you won’t even know I have the place. It’s for appearances, and the investment, I — I’m not leaving you. I’m not.”

Vince looks up, and now, Eric meets his eye. He looks so alarmed at the implication of breaking up that Vince believes him. He nods, and Eric nods and slowly draws his hands away. “What — uh, what did you want to talk about?”

“I bought Dom and Turtle a condo,” he says.

Eric laughs, startled. “Seriously? Where’s the condo?”

“Near Johnny’s building. On the Beverly Hills side.”

He shakes his head. “I can't wait for that call from Marvin.”

Vince cracks a smile. He still feels shaky and unsettled. “I can’t believe you bought a house,” he says.

“I can’t really, either,” Eric says. He rubs his face. “Just, this guy’s been talking about it, and yesterday, I was — I was so mad, and Dom got under my skin already about this stuff —”

“What stuff? What did you guys fight about, anyway?”

“It sounds stupid, now,” he says. “We got in this fight — he called me, uh, something new, great, whatever, and I told him his days were numbered here, that he couldn’t just live off your guilt and generosity forever. And he — he said that cut both ways, you know, that that’s a pretty bold argument for a guy to make when he’s also living off your generosity.”

Vince rolls his eyes. “I will sign this house over to you, if you want,” he says. “Or put your name on it. We’re partners, E — what’s mine really is yours.”

“I know that,” Eric says, though Vince doesn’t believe him. “But — not everyone else gets it. It — people who don’t know us, it does look like I’m a mooch. And I know, you don’t like hearing about or thinking about money, but for the first time in a long time, maybe my whole life, I’ve got enough. I’ve got more than enough, and I — a guy’s supposed to take care of himself, you know? It means something to me that I can do that, now, that it’s not always you paying for everything.”

Vince nods. “I know,” he says. “I know that about you.”

“OK,” Eric says. “I am sorry.” He sighs, and when he looks up, he looks so tired that Vince feels how he so often has recently: bad for bothering Eric at all.

“So, what’s say you spend some of that money on delivery?” Vince says, standing up. He drops his hands onto Eric’s shoulders and rubs, and Eric nods. “And then, maybe some hot tub time?”

“Fuck, yes,” he says. “I love being rich.”

Vince laughs. “And after that,” he promises, “I’ll give you some other reasons to keep coming home.”


	4. Chapter 4

They have a meeting with Ari the next day to go over final details for the movie, and then a lunch with Shauna to talk about upcoming press stuff. At both meetings, Eric gets interrupted by phone calls that he has to take.

“What’s his story?” Shauna asks when he leaves the table to take a call.

“He’s busy,” Vince says, shrugging. He knows the calls are really about the merger, but he can’t tell anyone about that. “Gotta work hard to keep me in the manner to which I’m accustomed.”

“Well, cheers for finding a man like that,” Shauna says, and takes a big sip of her martini. “So lets talk about these interviews.”

They start making arrangements for a pre-premiere spread that  _Vanity Fair_  wants to do, and when Eric slides back into the booth they’re talking about the photographer.

“Wait, pictures?” Eric says. “I thought this was just a short what’s-up-now thing.”

Shauna rolls her eyes. “Jesus Christ, Eric, do you read the things I send you or just use them to wipe Harvey’s ass? We’re a contender for the cover, and that requires pictures.”

Eric sighs. “Sorry,” he says. “I’ve had some other stuff going on, I guess I didn’t read through what you faxed.”

“What is your fucking job, exactly?” Shauna asks.

“I’m doing like eight different things right now, Jesus,” Eric says. “I just — Ari sent things, you sent things, I must have gotten them mixed up.”

“You’re fucking lucky this guy’s got such a hard-on for you,” Shauna says, leaning forward to whisper, though her voice is steely. “Any other manager was this checked out, he would’ve been on the curb weeks ago, Eric.”

“Yeah, I know, I know,” Eric says. 

The defensive note in his voice makes Vince raise his hands. “OK, easy, easy. We’re all agreed on the photos now, though, right?”

Shauna nods sharply, still glaring at Eric, and Eric nods, too. They get back on track, but Vince can see that Shauna’s words are working on Eric a little. That night he says, “Do you think I’ve been dropping the ball with your career, lately?”

Vince doesn’t really know what to say to that. They’ve never made a habit of lying to each other, though, so he says, “Yeah, maybe, you’ve been a little distracted.”

Eric turns on his side and looks at Vince. “I know,” he says. “I don’t — I don’t mean to be. I just have a lot going on.”

“Yeah,” Vince says. He cups Eric’s shoulder, then says, softly, “Sometimes it feels like too much is going on.”

Eric turns back to his side. “I know,” he says again, but he doesn’t say anything else. Vince decides not to push. This is the way Eric works — he has to come around to it on his own. He’s just relieved to see he’s starting to realize that he’s got too much going on, that this second career with Harvey can’t really work out. Vince decides he’ll give him a week, then bring it up again. Maybe he’ll get Ari to pile on a little, too. If it takes Ari to get through to Eric, Vince isn’t above using him. He wonders if he can figure out some reason to schedule another meeting for that week.  


Vince spends the next few evenings with Turtle and Dom at their new place, even crashes there once when they all get drunk on a bottle of scotch Turtle found in one of his boxes. It’s a bottle he lifted from Vince’s bar, but Vince doesn’t care. It gets put to good use, after all. When he calls Eric to check in, Eric doesn’t sound pissed — he sounds almost relieved, saying he was going to have to work late anyway.  


Dom says, “What, he’s fucking his secretary or something?”  


Vince laughs, taking another drink. “Nah, he’s working.”  


“Uh-huh. Wish I could find a girl who’d let me get away with half the shit you let that guy do.”  


Vince rolls his eyes. “Dom, it’s E. He’s not cheating. He’s just always working.”  


“Kids got it in the genes, I guess,” Dom says, and they all toast the memories of their fathers as they drink again.  


Eric comes in the next evening and sits in the lounge chair that’s next to Vince’s, where he’s been reading for most of the afternoon. “Hey, you eat yet?” Vince asks.  


Eric shakes his head. “I wanna talk to you,” he says.  


“So talk.”  


“I — Look. I’ve been, these last few months, I’ve —” He stops, takes a breath, and Vince starts to worry a little.  


“Spit it out, E,” he says. “Are you feeling sick?”  


“No,” he says. “I just — I think you’re right. You’re right, and Ari’s right, and Shauna’s right, and even Harvey’s right. I’ve been working too much.”  


Vince nods and smiles a little. “Thank God,” he says, “I didn’t know if you were ever going to come around.”  


Eric’s smile is also very small. “Yeah, well. Something’s gotta give, huh?”  


“No kidding. What’d Harvey say?”  


Eric frowns. “That’s, uh. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He clears his throat, but to his credit he looks Vince right in the eye. “I don’t think I should be your manager anymore.”  


Vince has to ask him to repeat that, and even when he’s heard it again, he doesn’t believe it. “What are you talking about?”  


“I think — you’ve been Oscar nominated, Vin. You’ve got great prospects ahead, maybe it’s time you got a real management company behind you.”  


“Fuck that, you know what I think of those places,” Vince says. “I get all that stuff working with you.”  


Eric nods, and he rubs his neck. “OK,” he says. “OK. The thing is — I don’t think I can do it, anymore.”  


“Because you’re too busy working for fucking Harvey!”   


“No,” Eric says, and when Vince rolls his eyes, he says, “No. Seriously. That’s not the reason. I mean, it’s part of it, but — no. I just — this thing, you and I —” and he reaches over and grips Vince’s wrist — “We haven’t had a lot of time, recently.”  


“And you quitting is going to improve that?” Vince asks. He kind of wants to pull his hand away; all he’s feeling, right now, is wounded.  


“I’m saying, we already don’t get as much time as we should, because you’re busy and I’m busy, and then half the time I see you we have business to talk about anyway. And I gotta tell you, I don’t need to come home to business, too, you know?”  


“I don’t know,” Vince says quietly. “I like how things are. How they were. You’re, like, the only person I trust with this stuff, E.”  


He nods. “I know,” he says. “Either way, you’re gonna get my advice on everything, you know that, but I think you gotta have someone else around to really look out for you, and maybe someone who can be there, at every single event.” Vince frowns. “I can’t be rational about you anymore,” Eric says. “That’s what I’m saying. I’m overinvolved.”  


“Why do you —”  


“I feel like, we’ve reached a point where we have to choose, OK? Either we’re business partners, or we’re partner partners.”  


“Either business or pleasure, huh?” Vince asks.   


“Yeah,” Eric says, “and I’m choosing us. OK? Over business, over the job, I choose being with you.” He offers a tentative smile. He can tell Eric’s already made this decision, and Vince didn’t get to where he is by doubting Eric’s decisions, but he doesn’t like it, doesn’t even really believe what Eric’s saying. “Think about it this way, next time we hit a premiere together, I won’t be working.”  


That makes Vince feel some better, and he nods, and lets Eric kiss the inside of his wrist. “OK, but you gotta help me find someone new,” he says, and Eric nods.  


“Deal.” He rubs his hands together. “We’re gonna find you the ugliest, straightest man on the planet.”  


Actually, they find Vince a nice-looking straight man, Kelvin, who is totally not his type and who works for a very small firm in Beverly Hills. Kelvin’s an all right guy — not Eric, by any means, but someone who has enough experience around town that there’s not much necessary training. He reads scripts and hands off a few that sound good, takes meetings with Ari, finds Dom a job working security at a film warehouse, and plays basketball with Vince and the guys in the driveway while Vince is waiting on Eric to get home. When Vince starts filming on the Cuarón movie, Kelvin’s on set every day dealing with problems and questions, and between him and Ari (who is Kelvin’s number one fan) they manage to get Vince a little salary boost on the picture to reflect his nominations. Kelvin also helps Vince score a cabin in Australia in the fall, where he plans to take Eric as a surprise, since their summer plans have gotten shifted back.  


They never officially come out — there’s no big announcement, no party, no interview — but they do, somehow, get figured out. Maybe it’s leftover observation from the hospital (Vince imagines someone reported that Eric was asking to see his partner all night); maybe it’s that after Eric quits as his manager, they still show up together everywhere; maybe it’s Shauna working behind the scenes. Whatever it is, they manage to keep it off the covers of the magazines, but everyone they know seems to know. Vince goes to one of the premieres for a movie Eric’s been working on, and there’s a seat reserved for him next to Eric (which puts him a row back from Harvey’s fourth wife). When a reporter asks him outside what he’s doing there, he doesn’t feel weird at all saying, “I’m here supporting my guy, he produced this.” What does feel weird is that no one has to ask him for Eric’s name.  


In fact, as the summer goes on, they go to more events just like that, and though Vince continues to make a bigger splash on the red carpet, Eric’s the one who gets the attention inside. Half the people who come by to say hi don’t give Vince more than a cursory hello. At first, he enjoys it, but then it starts to get annoying.  


“Jesus, what am I, your industry trophy wife?” Vince asks one evening as they’re headed home. He spent the whole night texting Turtle as Hollywood royalty stopped by to tell Eric how much they loved the new film. Worse than that, a director Vince liked from Sundance two years back stopped over, and was way more interested in talking to Eric than he was Vince. Apparently they’ve got some deal going that Vince didn’t even know about. “I’m your Kate Capshaw, now?”  


Eric laughs. “You are way hotter than Kate Capshaw,” he says, “and way more famous. Than her, and than me. I’m sorry, I know it’s a drag to do business all night.” He reaches over and rubs Vince’s neck, which is the most affection Vince gets in public. “But tomorrow night, we got nothing going. Right?”  


“I’ll have to check with Kelvin,” Vince says, feeling a little sulky.  


Eric keeps rubbing. “I think you’re free,” he says. “And we’re gonna go to dinner.”  


It doesn’t turn out to be the intimate night Vince was hoping for, because Johnny calls in the middle of the day and basically invites himself and the other guys along. Dom can’t go, because he’s working, so it’s just the four of them. They end up at a place Johnny picks, and as they’re waiting for their main courses, Johnny blurts out, “I asked Larissa to marry me and she said yes!”  


“Holy shit,” Vince says, and then realizes he was in perfect unison with Eric and Turtle. They all laugh, and there’s an immediate rush to clap Johnny on the shoulders and hug him and high-five him. “Wow, so, when?” Vince asks, after signalling the waiter and ordering champagne.  


“June,” he says. “She wanted some time to plan it. I think she wants — we’re talking about, maybe like a destination type deal. And she’s got like eight cousins, they all gotta be bridesmaids.”  


“Hot cousins?” Turtle asks.  


Johnny rolls his eyes. He’s grinning ear-to-ear, and Vince feels a real rush of happiness for him. He’ll find a way, later, to make sure that he covers whatever expenses Johnny needs for this wedding. Johnny’s been working steady recently, but television still isn’t movies. “So listen, I wanted — I mean — I thought, you guys, since we’re all out here, and we’ve been like family — “ He shakes his head, and Vince can see he’s getting a little choked up.  


“Of course, Johnny,” Vince says, gripping his shoulder. “We’ll do it.”  


Johnny nods. “I need some decent fucking groomsmen, you know?”  


“Yeah, Drama, of course,” Eric says, and Turtle echoes that. Vince looks over and catches Eric’s eye, and he smiles a little, both a can-you-believe-it smile and something more tender and warm, and Vince returns the look.  


“Jesus, that kind of blows my news out of the water,” Eric says, and Vince looks over, curious.  


“Your news?” He leans in. “Are we getting married?”  


Eric shakes his head. “Not in this state,” he says. “No, I, uh — I signed a deal with Paramount.”  


“Yeah? What’s the new project?” Johnny asks. “Anything in it for me?”  


“Not that kind of deal,” Eric says, crossing his arms, smiling a little to himself. Vince gets a sudden cold feeling in his stomach, though he can’t explain why. “I’m going to work there.”  


“What?” Turtle says. “They need a cafeteria manager?”  


“No, fucktard, they need a new co-VP for production at Dreamworks.”  


Vince sets his glass down. “Dreamworks. Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks?” Eric nods. The smile is growing a little, but he manages a calm sip of his beer. “You met with Steven Spielberg and you didn’t mention it?”  


He shrugs. “I didn’t know if it was gonna come through,” he says. “Their last guy had two MBAs and fucked David Geffen.”  


“Tell me you didn’t take that route,” Turtle says, and Eric shakes his head, laughing.  


“Paramount’s looking at HWP right now, so they want someone on board who’s dealt with Harvey. And they liked the work on Mastery. I’ve spent the last six months talking to Goodman nearly every day, so when the spot came open —”  


“Jesus,” Vince says, and then he says it again, for lack of anything better to say. “E — that’s —”  


“Fucking amazing,” Johnny says.  


“A fucking miracle,” Turtle says. “Two in one night, holy shit. We need another bottle.”  


“On E,” Johnny says, and Eric laughs again.  


That night, when it’s just the two of them in Eric’s car on the way home, Eric says, “You’re kind of quiet.”   


Vince nods, still looking out the window. “Honestly, I’m still taking it all in. Johnny’s getting married and you’re working at Dreamworks — it’s a lot, you know?”  


“Yeah,” Eric says. “I, uh. I wanted to tell you, just the two of us, tonight, but — it’s gonna be in Variety tomorrow maybe, so I didn’t think I should wait.” He glances over. “Are you OK?”  


“Yeah, I’m fine. Are you OK?”  


“I’m — yeah, Vin, I’m good. I’m great.”  


“Then I’m happy for you.”  


“Right. You look happy.”  


Vince shrugs. “E, what do you want me to say? I just heard about this for the first time two hours ago, though you’ve obviously been planning it for a while. I’m surprised, I’m — I’m a little hurt you didn’t say anything before, I guess, but I’ll get over it.”  


“I didn’t know if it was going to work out,” Eric says. He sounds exasperated. “And — the whole thing’s been pretty hush-hush, like, I didn’t want anyone at Harvey’s shop to know other than him, and I couldn’t have Ari telling anybody —”  


“So what, you don’t think I could keep a secret from Ari?” He shakes his head. “I’m trying, OK, to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but it sort of seems like you don’t trust me.”  


“Hey, I trust you,” Eric says quickly — too quickly. “Of course I trust you. I just — this is the biggest fucking deal I’ve ever worked on. If Paramount buys HWP, that’s automatic distribution for the last six films we’ve got in the pipeline, and that’s — it’s seriously like 20 million dollars for me.”  


“I don’t fucking care about the fucking money,” Vince says, the words coming out almost like a hiss. “Jesus Christ, Eric, who do you think I am that that kind of stuff would impress me?”  


“I thought you were my fucking boyfriend, and I thought you might  _actually_  be happy for me, instead of being such a fucking pain in the ass about stuff,” Eric says. The light turns green and Eric zips forward into traffic, and neither of them talks for a few blocks. “Look,” he says, his tone still a little sharp. “I didn’t not tell you because I don’t trust you. I’ve just — I kept meaning to, but everything was so busy. And Dom was around, and you were filming, and I just — I got busy and I fucked up, and I’m sorry.”  


“We’re supposed to be partners,” Vince says. He doesn’t like the plaintive note in his voice, but he can’t quite squash it. “E, you used to tell me everything.”  


“I still do,” Eric says, and Vince’s head jerks up. “OK, all the important stuff.” He sighs. “Fuck, Vin, I know, I know, I’ve got a lot going on, I’m sorry.”  


Vince shakes his head and looks out the window. He feels kind of like he’s being a bitch, but — the truth is, his feelings are hurt. Eric bought a fucking house without telling him. He changed jobs without telling him. Vince doesn’t know a lot about serious relationships, but he knows they’re supposed to be different than this.  


“Are you really pissed at me?”  


Vince shrugs. “Kind of,” he says.  


“You can’t just be happy for me?”  


“I am,” Vince says. He turns in his seat, faces Eric. “E, I want to be. OK? I want you to do well, I want you to have a job you love and be successful and all of that. But you keep doing shit like this, you keep — you bought a house, you changed jobs, you — you didn’t even ask me, you didn’t even talk to me.”  


“Vince,” Eric says, and he sighs. “I said I was sorry. I am sorry. I really, really — I was going to take you out tonight, just the two of us —”  


“And what the fuck is that shit, anyway? The two of us. But not really, right? Not really a date, because no one fucking knows.”   


“Hey, you said that was OK, to wait, you said —” Eric swerves, and Vince jerks back into his seat, a second before Eric’s arm flings out across his chest. There’s a screech of tires and then a loud honk, and they sail past a red car that’s come to a halt in the next lane.  


“Jesus!” Vince yells.  


“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Eric says, drawing his arm back and putting both hands on the wheel.  


“You’re gonna get us killed!” Vince says. His voice is shaky.  


“I know, I know.” He takes a deep breath, and they drive about a block before he speaks again. “Can we talk about this at home?”  


“Yes,” Vince says. “Yes. Just — please get us there.”  


Eric nods. He takes a deep breath, and then nods again, and he doesn’t talk the rest of the way, and Vince doesn’t take his eyes off the road, either.  


At the house, they stop in the driveway, and Vince climbs out and leans against the car. Eric walks around and faces him, and he says, “I’m sorry.”  


He’s still a little shaky form the near-miss in the car, but he makes his voice steady. “Don’t be sorry,” Vince says. He watched his parents fight the whole time he was growing up, he’s played a dozen crappy boyfriends and seen a million more on television. The thing he hates most in the world is fighting — no, the thing he hates most in the world is fighting with Eric. Maybe Dom’s right, maybe he lets Eric get away with stuff, but — it’s Eric. At the end of the day, he’s a good guy, and he’s Vince’s guy, and that’s what matters. He reaches out and puts his hands on Eric’s shoulders, and Eric looks up at him with wide eyes. He is sorry, Vince can tell. “Don’t be sorry. Be better, OK? Don’t take a job without telling me. Basic couple stuff, right?” Eric nods. “OK. So don’t do that again.”  


Eric smiles just a little. “I promise I won’t.” He reaches up and puts his hands over Vince’s, and then ducks his head and rests it against Vince’s chest.   


Vince rubs his neck. “E, we gotta figure some stuff out,” he says. “I wanna talk about coming out for real.”  


“Yeah,” Eric says. He pulls back, looks up at Vince. “We should talk about that.”  


“And about — I miss you,” Vince says. He feels a little lame for saying it, but it’s true.  


Eric blinks. “What?”  


“I never get to see you,” Vince says quietly. “I know you’re working, I know you’re new to this job, but — I’m home alone way too often.”  


Eric frowns, but then he nods. “I know,” he says. “I know. We’ll — I just, it’s gonna be hard the next month or two, but then I should have a break before I start at the new place. We could go somewhere.” He looks up, and he looks hopeful. “Anywhere you want.”  


“OK,” Vince says. He leans down and kisses Eric, cupping his face in both hands. “I don’t even care where we go, if I get to see you the whole time we’re there.”  


“As much of me as you want,” Eric says, and Vince snorts, which makes them both laugh. “Seriously, though,” Eric says, touching Vince’s face. “Are we OK?”  


“Yeah,” Vince says. It’s not totally true, but he’ll work on making it that way. He can pretend to be OK with things until he actually is, and by that time, maybe, they’ll be lying on a beach somewhere. “We’re good.”  


For the next couple of weeks, though, it’s just business as usual — for Eric, at least. Vince is still killing time, and he finally sets a date for dinner with Johnny and Larissa. Eric, the night before, brings home a very expensive bottle of wine and tells Vince he can’t make it; Vince takes it in stride, because honestly, he expected this.  


They go to the Ivy, just the three of them. Johnny wants it to be just family, because he’s taking Larissa to New York in a week to meet the rest of the family. She’s a sweet girl, with just enough sass that Vince believes she can survive their mother unscathed. “They’re gonna love you,” Vince assures her.  


“You think?” She looks over at him, then over at Johnny. Vince knows this is the girl for his brother because of things like this. Larissa’s not unattractive — she’s got long, toned legs and long black hair, and though she’s not model-thin, she’s fit, and nice-looking, and always well-dressed (though rarely scantily clad). Definitely Johnny’s type, but not the type that usually goes for him. That Johnny’s ga-ga for her is no surprise; what Vince likes, what convinces him that this girl is for real, is that for Larissa, sometimes, Vince isn’t even in the room.  


“I know,” Vince says. “Hey, we all love you. If you weren’t tied up to this guy —”  


“Hands off, baby bro,” Johnny says, putting an arm around Larissa. “Besides, E would have your balls.”  


Vince laughs and lifts a glass in toast to that.  


“So where is he tonight?” Larissa asks after the appetizers are served.  


Vince shrugs. “Working. He’s got this new job — you know, I don’t even exactly remember the title.”  


“He’s co-VP for production at Dreamworks,” Johnny offers.  


“You don’t know what he does?”  


“No, I know,” Vince says. “I just — he just took the job recently.”  


Larissa glances at Johnny. “Hey, you didn’t tell me Eric had a new job.”  


Johnny shrugs. “I forgot, baby, I’m sorry. It was the same night I told the guys about us getting engaged.” He smirks. “And if you think you’re surprised, think how Vince felt.”  


Larissa looks over at him. “You didn’t know?” Vince shakes his head, chewing on an artichoke fry. “Oh, no way,” Larissa says. “He took a new job without talking to you? I barely let your brother get dressed without my say-so.”  


Vince expects Johnny to object, but he just looks at Larissa with a pleased little smile. “She has great taste,” he says, shrugging, and Larissa gives him an affectionate smile back. “You ought to let her take you shopping sometime, bro.”  


“Sure, any time,” Vince says.  


As the meal goes on, he watches them. It’s what actors do, after all. He watches his brother and his soon-to-be sister-in-law as they flirt, as they laugh, and they break into each other’s stories. He watches them hold hands on top of the table, watches Larissa’s half-annoyed, half-affectionate look when Johnny tells an off-color joke, watches the way his brother glows a little when Larissa talks about the job she’s working on, a period piece out of Universal. Basically, he watches them to see what being in love, for a normal everyday couple, looks like, and he both likes and feels discouraged by what he sees.  


When he gets home, Eric’s already in bed, dozing against the headboard, the TV remote having dropped out of his slack hand. Vince gets ready for bed quietly, then crawls in next to Eric, ducking under his arm. Eric snuffles and wakes, bends and kisses his head. “You have fun?” he asks.  


Vince nods. “I wish you’d been there,” he says, resting one hand on Eric’s warm belly.  


“I’m sorry,” Eric says, voice still sleepy. “Glad you had a good time.”  


They shuffle down into bed, touching a little, and Eric reaches out for a kiss good-night. Vince kisses back, touches Eric’s face, looks at his closed eyes. He wants what his brother has, and he feels like, maybe, it’s right here. But he also worries that it might never be possible for the two of them.  


“Don’t worry,” Eric says, snuggling into his pillow, one of his hands tangling up in Vince’s shirt. “Vacation soon.”  


“Not soon enough,” Vince murmurs, but Eric’s already asleep.  


  


Vince thinks about the promised vacation whenever he gets annoyed over the next few weeks, and it acts as a tonic. He still doesn’t see enough of Eric, but for once, he’s busy, too. Kelvin’s spotted a couple of things he says are promising, so they take a meeting early the next week with Ari to talk things through.  


“Screw all of this shit,” Ari says, sweeping Kelvin’s suggestions off his desk onto the floor. He reaches instead into a desk drawer and draws out another script, which he drops onto the table in front of Vince. “Medellin,” Ari says, throwing the script on the table in front of him.   


“Holy shit,” Vince says, picking up the script. “Seriously? I thought that was dead.”  


“Seriously,” Ari says. “New studio, new schedule, and new director, baby, all breathing life into the craziest motherfucking druglord of our time.”  


“Who’s the director?” Kelvin asks.  


“Excellent question, for which I have an excellent fucking answer. You ready? No, seriously, are you —”  


“Ari,” Vince says.  


“Paul Haggis is directing, his first project since Crash, and he loves you. Did I tell you? You do Coaster, you keep your midget-fucking predilection on the DL, and good shit happens.”  


Vince feels like his grin might split his face. “This is awesome!”  


“Read it, get back to me, meet with Haggis next week and we can get this sewed up by Labor Day, film in the fall, roll out for festivals in the summer and Oscars next year.”  


Vince holds his script in both hands. “Ari, thank you,” he says.  


“No, thank you,” Ari says. “Haggis fucking loved Coaster. This is where we’ve been headed, gentlemen. You nail this, I don’t care if your next film is you nailing E on camera, you’re gonna be a serious star.”  


Vince takes the script home and reads half of it after dinner, while he’s waiting for Eric to get home. It’s good — better, even, than when he read it with Eric in New York. And with Haggis directing, it’s gonna be amazing. The only things he’s not looking forward to are the 70 pounds Haggis wants him to gain, and the three months of filming in the jungle, away from Eric.  


He sets the script down. It doesn’t feel right to make this movie without Eric. Eric found the script; he was the one who dropped it in front of him while they were filming  _Queens Boulevard_  and said, “I found our next fucking movie, man.” They were so excited, it was one of the only things — other than that bitch Kristen — that they talked about on the flight home from New York. Vince flips through the pages and suddenly, it strikes him that maybe he doesn’t have to do it without Eric. There is no logical reason that Eric can’t come to Colombia with him. He’s nearly done with his current project, and he’s been saying — they’ve both been saying — that they need a break. This could be the thing. They need a restart, Vince thinks. They need to get back to how things were in Australia and just after, when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, when Eric wanted him all the time.  


“Yo,” Eric calls, walking in the front door.  


“Hey.” Eric walks into the kitchen still carrying his bag, and he’s grinning. “You look happy. What, you get to kill someone at work today?”  


“Even better,” he says, dropping his bag into a chair. “We’re finishing shooting two days early. You believe that?”  


“Nice,” Vince says. He tilts his head and Eric kisses his neck as he passes by. “You get some kind of bonus for that?”  


“Anything that saves Harvey money is a bonus in the end,” he says. He grabs a beer out of the fridge, and after a glance at Vince, grabs a second. He passes one over and says, “What’re you reading?”  


Vince smiles and turns the script around. “Ari came through.”  


“Medellin? Holy shit, Vince,” he says. His beer, unopened, gets pushed to the side as Eric looks at the pages. “Who’s directing?”  


“Paul Haggis,” Vince says, and Eric looks up with a huge smile on his face. “Yeah.”  


“You’re doing it.”  


“I’m totally doing it,” Vince says, and Eric laughs and reaches across the island, kisses him quick.   


“Jesus, congratulations!”  


“I’m fucking psyched.”  


“You should be. This is the same script we were looking at?”  


“Yeah. Haggis has made a couple changes, I think, but — it looks awesome.” He pats his stomach. “You still gonna love me with an extra 70 pounds?”  


“I’d love you with an extra 140,” Eric says, still smiling. “Ho-ly fuck. I owe Ari an apology, I never thought he’d get this for you.”  


Vince leans forward. “You got this for me,” he says.  


Eric laughs. “Are you confusing me with Kelvin again?”  


“I mean — you found this script, E. You found it in New York, you brought it to Ari. I’m getting this because of your good eye.” He grins. “Kind of like the old days, you know?”  


“Yeah, except I don’t get ten percent anymore,” Eric says, shaking his head. “What’d they offer?”  


“Ten million,” Vince says, and Eric whistles.  


“Ten million and an Oscar, not a bad combo plate,” he says. He finally opens his beer. “So when do you start? What’s the schedule like?”  


“Starts in September. Filming in Colombia.”   


Eric finishes his sip and says, “Colombia? Is that safe?”  


“Paul’s done a bunch of negotiating with the locals, I guess. We should be fine.” Vince raises his eyebrows. “But if you’re worried, you could always come along.”  


“Right.” Eric walks around the island still carrying his beer. “We ought to go celebrate this. The guys know yet?”  


“I wanted to tell you first,” Vince says. He keeps watching Eric, who’s suddenly concentrating on his beer. “E. I want you to come with me.”  


“Come with you where?”  


“To Colombia.”  


Eric laughs, just once. “Wait, you’re serious?” Vince nods. “Vince, I can’t. I got work to do, you know that.”  


“I know you said you were getting a break. And you’re about finished with your other project, right?”  


“It’s not — I still have stuff to do,” Eric protests. “I gotta finish things out for Harvey, I can’t just —”  


“You can,” Vince says, reaching out. His hand rests on Eric’s side. “Come on, E. You said — we both said, we were gonna try and spend more time together.”  


Eric shrugs. “I can’t just up and leave, Vince.”  


“Right.” Vince pulls back. What he sees on Eric’s face and hears in Eric’s voice isn’t an inability to leave — it’s a lack of desire. He stands up and walks to the living room, and it takes Eric a minute to follow.   


“Vince —”  


He turns around slowly, sees Eric standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, looking pissed. “You have to work.” Eric nods. “Every day. From now until when?”  


Eric shrugs. “From now until retirement. That’s how it works, that’s what a real job is like. I have to fucking work.”  


“A real job. Right. So tell me — when were we going to take this vacation, anyway? You said, anywhere I wanted to go. You said, as much of you as I wanted. When the fuck was that gonna happen, E, around your real job?”  


“I am trying —”  


“You are not!” Vince is yelling; he can hear the anger trembling in his voice. None of this is put on, none of this is acting. It’s everything that’s been bothering him for the last few months — hell, the last two years, it’s all coming up. “You’re not trying at all! You don’t even — when was the last time you even made an effort to come home early, Eric?”  


“Jesus Christ, we’re gonna get into this right now?”  


“When else can we get into it? Should I schedule an appointment? Maybe you could just staff me out to Steph.” He’s fucking shaking, even as he points at Eric. “When the fuck have you made an effort?”  


“Right fucking now, asshole,” Eric says. “Right now, I came home just to see you, because you’ve been on my fucking case all week,” and here his voice pitches high and it’s so stupid, Vince knows he doesn’t sound like this, “‘Oh, I never see you, oh, wah wah wah.’”  


“This is early? This is — it’s fucking 9 o’clock, E, and you wake up at the ass-crack of dawn.”  


“Yeah, and you know what, I could just go home and go to bed, but instead, I busted my ass to get here, to spend a little time with you, instead of hanging around for cigars after dinner —”  


“After dinner?”  


“Harvey and Katzenberg.”  


“Jesus Christ,” Vince says. He rubs his forehead. “Somehow, I thought when you quit working for him, you’d actually stop working for him.”  


“We still have things in production,” Eric says. “What is it you think I do all day?”  


“I don’t have a goddamned clue,” Vince says.  


Eric huffs and walks out of the room, and Vince stands there in silence for another minute. What he thinks, as he hears Eric slamming dresser drawers and the bathroom door down the hall, is that it really isn’t any fun anymore. Eric needs to relax so badly it’s like a sickness he needs treatment for, like something Vince wishes he could call in an expert to treat. It’s gone beyond something he can fix or wait out, he thinks, and that makes him feel anxious and unhappy all over again.  


Eric walks back through a minute later carrying his bag again. Vince groans. “What is this shit, now you’re gonna run away from home? Oh wait, I forgot, this isn’t even your home, is it?”  


“Fuck you,” Eric says, “you said the house thing was OK, you —”  


“You bought an entire fucking house without telling me, E! I’m supposed to be — I’m supposed to be your partner, but you know what? I bet I know who you did tell. I bet Harvey knew all about it, I bet —  


“What is your deal with him?”  


“My deal is he’s the most important man in your life, E. And that ain’t how it was supposed to go.”  


Eric shifts his bag. “Give me a break,” he says, his voice dripping with disdain and disbelief. “Harvey — Harvey made me, Vin, you think I should just turn my back on his advice, his help?”  


“Fuck you, Harvey made you!” Vince says. His blood is pounding in his ears, his chest is tight, and he’s hurting and he wants, suddenly, he wants Eric to hurt right back. “ _I_  fucking made you.”  


Eric takes a step back. Vince can see he’s shaking, and his face is red. “Who fucking made who?” he yells, pointing at Vince. “If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be waiting around for Matterhorn to get made.”  


Vince stands, too, and crosses his arms. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d be fucking Aquaman.”  


“And Mandy Moore,” Eric sneers. “Why don’t you look her up, because I get a feeling like you’re gonna be lonely tonight.”  


“Maybe I fucking will! At least I’d probably get to see her sometimes, at least with her I could have an actual fucking relationship instead of this home alone bullshit.”  


Eric is panting, still shaking, and Vince knows he must look the same. Eric says, “You know what your problem is? You just liked it better when I was the supporting guy. It bothers the fuck out of you for me to have an actual job, for me to have some actual power, right?”  


“It bothers me,” Vince says, “that you’re a fucking clone of all the guys we said we’d never be, yeah, E, that fucking bothers me. You, in your suits with your business meetings and your stock portfolio and your goddamned investment house. You aren’t even the guy I knew two years ago, you’re like the guy who fired that guy.” He shakes his head. “I’m doing this fucking movie,” he says. “Two years ago, you would have been with me.”  


“Yeah, well, have a fucking great time in Colombia,” he says.  


“Have a fucking great life in Malibu.”  


Vince walks out of the living room, hears the front door slam just before he reaches his bedroom. It takes him the rest of the night, tossing and turning, to realize what’s really happened: he just broke up with Eric.  


Holy fuck.


	5. Chapter 5

He calls the next day, the minute he wakes up. He calls Eric, gets voice mail, calls again, hangs up, and then calls Stephanie. “Thank God,” she says. “I’ll schedule a lunch, he’s a fucking wreck.”  
  


It’s not exactly what Vince wanted, but hearing that Eric’s a wreck — which is exactly what Vince feels like, like a car wreck or a train wreck or something where bent, twisting metal might have pushed its way into his chest — makes him feel a little better. “One o’clock at the Palm?”  
  


“He will be there. Absolutely.”  
  


He cleans up and puts on something he knows Eric likes, then changes into something else, then changes back to the first outfit. Then he throws a jacket over that, because — he is trying, but he doesn’t want to look like it. He calls Turtle for a ride, and he brings Dom along.  
  


“What’s with the jacket? You got some business meeting?” Turtle asks.  
  


Vince shrugs. “E and I have some things to work out,” he says.  
  


“He forget to take the trash out?” Dom asks.  
  


“Something like that.”  
  


The guys drop him off and have the good taste, surprisingly, not to go in with him. “We’ll get a bite down the road, you call when you need a lift back, or if you do,” Turtle says.  
  


Inside there’s a secluded corner booth waiting, thanks to Stephanie, and Vince takes a seat and orders a bottle of red wine. It’s 1:05, and Vince figures Eric will be there any moment, so he lets the waiter open it and pour two glasses.  
  


By 1:20, Vince has finished his first and poured himself a second. Around him the restaurant is full, like usual, and though he’s back in the corner of the booth, he feels like everyone there can see him. Everyone there can see he’s being stood up. He keeps his phone on the tabletop, where it glares the passing minutes at him. No missed messages. No new calls.  
  


The waiter comes by to see if he needs anything. “No, thanks,” Vince says. “I just — has anyone —”  
  


“I haven’t seen Mr. Murphy yet,” the waiter says. Vince can’t tell if his look is knowing or sympathetic. “It is Mr. Murphy, right?” Vince nods. Of course he knows Eric. Eric eats here all the time — business dinners, lunches, hell, he probably knows the busboys by name. “Yes. Well. As soon as I see him —”  
  


“Thanks,” Vince says.   
  


“Would you like some bread, while you wait?”  
  


What I want, Vince thinks, is not to have to wait at all. “You know, actually, I think I might go ahead and order.”  
  


He gets a steak, then orders two more, to go, for Dom and Turtle, and a smaller piece for the dog. He doesn’t order anything for Eric. He’s going to sit here and eat his expensive steak, alone, and when he’s done he’s gonna get up and leave. If Eric shows, great. If not — he’s through waiting around.   
  


When Eric arrives at 1:40, Vince is getting close to having finished the full bottle of wine, and his steak has just arrived. Eric starts with, “I’m so sorry I’m late.”  
  


Vince doesn’t look up from his meal. “That’s fine,” he says. “I’m used to it.”  
  


The waiter comes by to see what Eric wants, and he orders a salad, something quick. Vince asks the waiter to bring his other food, too, and though he looks briefly surprised, he complies. Eric grabs a piece of bread and starts tearing it into pieces. Vince savors his steak. It really is good. Peppery.  
  


“Look,” Eric says. “We need to talk, right? After last night.”  
  


Vince shrugs. “You know, I’ve been thinking about that,” he says. He slices another slim bite of the steak. It’s a beautiful, rosy pink in the middle, cuts like butter. “I’m not sure there’s that much to talk about.”  
  


“Vince —”  
  


He chews, and chews, and chews. After he swallows, he looks up just briefly at Eric, whose eyes are wide and look a little bruised beneath the lids. Vince sets down his fork and meets his gaze. “I’m through waiting on you,” he says. “I’m through playing second fiddle to your job.”  
  


“Vince, that’s not –“  
  


“Bullshit it’s not true. That job is your life. You’re working all the time, you fight with everyone, you’re turning into a tiny little Harvey and you don’t even realize it.” Vince looks back at his food, picks up his wine glass. “You don’t even have a life anymore. And even if you did, I don’t think you have any intention of sharing it with me.”  
  


“You’re breaking up with me,” Eric says. He sounds absolutely astonished.  
  


“What did you think was going to happen?” His wine glass is empty. He wants to grab Eric’s, but the intimacy that would allow that — that’s gone. He gets it, now. Everything that came together for them in Australia has already fallen apart. All that’s left now is to say the words. “You were forty-five minutes late to the one meal that could have saved us,” Vince says. “And I’m not even surprised by it. I’m not even — it’s exactly what I expected of you. Where were you? Did Harvey need something?” Eric swallows so hard Vince can see it. “Yeah, it’s probably better if you don’t tell me.”  
  


“Wait,” Eric says. He reaches out, grabs Vince’s sleeve. “Why are you — what — this is because I can’t go to Colombia with you?”  
  


“No,” Vince says, pulling his sleeve away. “It’s because I’ve eaten too many dinners alone this year.”  
  


“You can’t — OK,” Eric says. “OK. Look. I’ll, I can fix this. I can be better, I’ll take more time —”  
  


“E, you’ve said that before. I can’t believe you anymore.”   
  


“Vince —”  
  


“It’s over,” he says, so quietly he has to look up to make sure that Eric has heard him, and then he’s sorry he looked, because the expression on Eric’s face almost makes him take it back. He looks like he’s been kicked, or struck. He looks exactly how Vince feels. “I can’t trust you anymore,” he says, mostly to remind himself.  
  


Eric rubs his face, and for a moment Vince thinks he’s gonna cry. Instead, when he pulls his hands back, something resembling a normal expression appears, just in time for the waiter to slide over Eric’s salad and Vince’s to-go boxes. Vince offers his credit card, and the waiter promises to return it immediately.  
  


“You’re just gonna leave me, huh?”  
  


“I think I have to,” Vince says.  
  


“I love you,” Eric says.  
  


“Yeah, I love you, too,” Vince murmurs. “But maybe that’s not enough right now.”  
  


The waiter drops off his bill, and Vince signs it and gathers his things and leaves. He doesn’t look back. He just messes with his phone, texting Turtle to come get him, and waits quietly at the front, hoping Eric doesn’t come by.  
  


When Turtle arrives, Vince climbs into the front seat. “How was lunch?”  
  


“I got you some steaks,” he says, and as he hands them back to Dom, he adds, “And Eric and I broke up.”   
  


There’s a heavy, silent moment in the car.  
  


“You want I should wait for him in the parking lot?” Dom asks.  
  


Turtle says, “At least his car. I mean, you gotta get him to give his car back.”  
  


“He’s driving the new S-class roadster,” Vince says. “He gave the car back a while ago.”  
  


And somehow it’s that, thinking of Eric’s Maserati sitting in Vince’s garage, that gift returned, an early sign, that makes Vince suddenly feel a little choked up. He turns toward the window so the guys can’t see it, and he wonders if they’re going to be able to salvage anything, if they’ll ever even be friends again.  
  


He tells himself that there could still be a happy ending to this, that maybe Eric will chase him to Colombia, that maybe Eric will show up on his doorstep that night, having quit his job and sold his house. He tells himself that, and it’s what gets him through the next few days and eventually what gets him on a plane to Colombia, even though he knows, he really does, that it’s not true.  
  


  
  


The truth is, as soon as he’s done filming, Vince falls apart.  
  


First, he goes to Colombia for three months to film with Haggis. He takes Turtle and Johnny; Dom can’t come because of his parole. It’s insane, even after Haggis drops his vision of Vince gaining so much weight. They’re compressing 130 days worth of filming into 90, so every day is long and hard, and it’s the Colombian jungle so even when he’s not working he’s hot and tired all the time. Haggis is a great director but he, like every director, has his own issues, perfectionism among them, and Kelvin isn’t quite equipped to handle things. Things go wrong left and right, and Vince finally has to call in a favor, through Ari, to get more money for the project. When the film goes out, he’ll be listed as a producer. He never thinks about calling HWP or Paramount, even though Ari says Harvey’s been interested in Medellin since Day One. He doesn’t hear from Eric the whole time he’s gone, and he doesn’t make any calls, either.  
  


They get back to L.A. and Vince fires Kelvin — with a nice severance package and a good reference — and signs up with Barbara Miller at Ari’s suggestion. They start working on getting Vince a new film, and Vince finds he doesn’t really care. When Ari tosses him the newest action-superhero flick out of Warners, some spinoff of the Ironman/Marvel Avengers franchise that needs a villain, Vince shrugs and says fine, whatever, and they throw ten million at him to film over most of the winter. Instead of canceling his reservations in Australia, he moves them into Johnny’s name and gives it as an early wedding gift.  
  


The only nice thing about never officially being out is that no one can officially ask him about the break-up, so after the film is over, when Vince finally has time to process things and he really starts to kind of fall apart, no one but the guys says anything. Ari offers some cheesy advice like, “Chin up, pal, you were dating below your potential, anyway,” and Shauna cancels the few little appearances he was supposed to do, but mostly Vince is alone in his big house with his big misery. Eric moved his things out while they were in Colombia, and Vince came home to find his keys on the counter. No note.  
  


They drink almost every night. Vince doesn’t get stupid drunk, he doesn’t get dangerous, but the guys come over — well, Turtle and Dom come over, because Johnny’s busy with wedding stuff — and they have some beers and play games on the Wii or set up elaborate golf challenges by the pool or in the living room. Vince finds it hard to go to bed alone, even after the four months in Colombia where he slept in a tiny trailer bed. Turtle gets him some pills for it — Dom’s first suggestion is a hooker — and he takes one every night until he doesn’t find it such a struggle to lay in the king-sized bed and not think about Eric.   
  


Still, he thinks about moving.  
  


He knows Eric’s doing OK. He’s even seen his name in  _Variety_  a couple of times, recently, as a producer on some big picture coming up for the fall. “Yeah,” Ari confirms, when Vince manages to ask, “he’s probably gonna get an Oscar, this time.”  
  


“Good for him,” Vince says, and he doesn’t ask again.  
  


What hurts the most is how far they’ve fallen apart in such a short amount of time. Vince thinks about Eric a lot — not every minute, not anymore, but still every day — but that’s all he can do. Think. Eric’s not around. Vince isn’t even sure how to best get a hold of him, if he wanted to. He doesn’t try Eric’s phone because he’s afraid the number will have changed. He doesn’t even know if Eric’s still living in his same Malibu house, and he’s not sure he could find his way there, if he had to. He doesn’t know what the proper way to break up with someone is, whether he’s even allowed to make contact, whether he’s expected to. Whether there’s some amount of time after which he could call and ask if they could be friends. He’s never felt this way before, and it sucks.  
  


The guys keep telling him he needs to get back out there, so he goes to clubs and he fucks a few girls and even a guy, and none of it helps. The casual thing that used to be so fun now feels kind of sad and desperate to him. He wakes up alone and he hates it, and he hates Eric a little for not being there and himself a little for being upset at all.  
  


But he keeps it pretty quiet. He lays around the house and lets Ari and Barbara and Shauna handle everything in his career and Turtle and Johnny and Dom handle everything else, and all he works on is learning to breathe, all he works on is trying not to think about how much everything fucking sucks. He is, off and on, successful.  
  


Until one morning, four months back from Colombia, when Shauna calls and says, “Honey, don’t freak out but something big’s happened and I’m headed your way right now.”  
  


“Mm-hm,” Vince says, still snuggled up to a pillow in his bed. Yeah, Eric’s old pillow, with Eric’s cologne (Vince bought a bottle) sprayed on it. Fine, whatever, he’s pathetic. He never had a relationship that lasted more than a month before this thing with Eric. “You know the code.”  
  


She’s there ten minutes later, and Vince joins her in the kitchen, making coffee as she talks. “Eric did an interview. Who would want to interview him, right?” Vince shrugs. The other weird thing about this break-up is that, even though he’s never really talked about the reasons with anyone, everyone is on his side. “But, anyway, he’s on this 40-under-40 list, and so they interviewed him.”  
  


Vince sits at the dining table and looks up at her, nonplussed. “You’re here to talk to me about Eric? Because — Shauna, I think you know, I don’t really have any say in what he does or doesn’t —”  
  


“Look at this,” she says, and she shoves a photocopy of a magazine page at him. It’s a picture of Eric, looking very sharp in a dark shirt with slightly flared sleeves, his head slightly ducked, one hand rubbing his neck like he does when he’s nervous, but his eyes staring up and straight ahead at the camera. His hair is spiked — probably done by some flashy stylist — and looks good, and there’s even a glint visible off his dark shoes. He’s wearing an expensive silver watch and a half-smile that’s both seduction and pride. In short, he looks very, very hot and just a little gay.  
  


“Whoa,” Vince says, holding it in both hands.  
  


“Read it, Vincent, don’t drool on it.”  
  


There’s only a short piece, underneath his name:  
  


 

> ERIC MURPHY, 34, VP for PRODUCTION, DREAMWORKS SKG
> 
> Though he’s only been in Hollywood for six years, Eric Murphy has worn more hats than most —

  
  


“What am I looking for?” Vince asks. He’s distracted, still, by the picture, and the way that it’s making him vaguely nauseated, or maybe a little turned on.  
  


“Second paragraph,” Shauna says.  
  


 

> Though Murphy agrees that Dreamworks has had a good year with his help, more money doesn’t always equal more happiness. “I just ended the longest relationship I’ve ever had,” he says. “I’m heartbroken, to be honest. I made twenty million this year and to do that I lost the love of my life, and now I smoke like a chimney and make depressing movies all the time. Welcome to Hollywood, right?”

  
  


Vince feels — well, he feels a mix of things. Light-headed, a little, and for whatever reason, angry, and also, over everything, sad. He wants to put his head down on the table, on top of this scorching picture of Eric, and just bawl. Instead, he clears his throat. “You came all the way here just to make sure my heart’s broken, too?” he asks.  
  


She frowns. “Sweetheart, no,” she says, almost too gently. “This — this isn’t the end of the story.”  
  


Vince pushes the picture away. “Now you’re gonna tell me he’s not even talking about me.”  
  


“It’s definitely you,” Shauna says. “That’s the problem. Variety’s already figured it out, they’ve already got a quote from about a year back, you saying that your friendship with him was the longest relationship you’ve ever had, something like that. I got a call from Nina there this morning. People wasn’t far behind. And all of the rumors from when he was in the hospital — that’s all about to hit us in the face.”  
  


Vince can’t figure out whether he should laugh or cry. “I’m gonna be outed, you’re saying. Now that there’s nothing to even out.”  
  


“People are going to ask,” she says. “You’re supposed to do promos for Cuarón next month, and honey —”  
  


“Cancel them,” Vince says. “Fucking — I don’t even want to — Jesus Christ,” he says, and now he does put his head down.   
  


“Vincent, please,” Shauna says. “Look, I know, I know, honey, I know it hurts and —”  
  


“Go away,” he says. He doesn’t let go of the picture of Eric, even after she’s gone. He’s not that surprised when Turtle shows up, within twenty minutes of Shauna leaving, and admits that she called and sent him over.  
  


“Jesus,” Turtle says, looking at the picture. “It’s kind of hard to believe that’s our same guy, huh?”  
  


Vince nods. The raw hurt has started to scab over again, back into the terrible quiet pain that's only there when he thinks about Eric. “Do you still talk to him?” Vince asks.  
  


Turtle shrugs. “Not really,” he says, and when Vince keeps looking at him, he says, “He was at the fitting Thursday.”  
  


Vince nods. He missed Johnny’s groomsmen’s fitting without even knowing it — Barbara and Johnny’s wedding planner have been figuring out those details around him. He wants to be supportive, but he’s not up for all the romance right now. “How’d he look?”  
  


“Uh, I don’t know. Not like that. More, uh, pretty tired, I guess. His girl was there with him.”  
  


Vince’s head snaps up. “His girl?”  
  


“Steph, you remember.” Vince pulls his sweater closer around himself, feeling a deep and instant sense of relief. If Eric was already dating again — even after seven months, Vince isn’t sure he could take it. “She was on the phone pretty much the whole time, but E didn’t really, like, take any calls, just sort of stood there and chewed his fingernails a lot. I remember that, he got blood on something so he had to buy it.” Turtle shakes his head. “He bought Drama’s tux, and all of ours, too.”  
  


“Flashing his money around,” Vince says, but Turtle shakes his head again.  
  


“I don’t even know if Drama knows, E just did it at the end, real quiet.” Turtle clears his throat. “He asked about you.”  
  


That hurts. “Yeah, what’d you say?”  
  


“I said you’re fine,” Turtle says. “Or fine enough. I don’t know.”  
  


“I am not fine,” Vince says slowly. He puts his head down again, though he doesn’t cry. He just rests there, his head pounding, his shoulders so tense he’s afraid to move.  
  


“Lemme call him,” Turtle says.  
  


“No.”  
  


“C’mon. You guys gotta work this out. You, like, Vince, I’m worried, man, I’m worried this is doing something to you.”  
  


“It is,” he says, “but I think this is how it’s supposed to feel. I don’t know. I never broke up with anyone before.”  
  


“Vin, he was — I know I’m not supposed to, like, say this, but the guy was your best friend, and he was your, y’know, like, life partner. You two were fucking made —”  
  


“If you don’t stop talking,” Vince says without raising his head, “I’m gonna cry.”  
  


There’s silence, then, and though Vince feels embarrassed by it, he also finds it soothing. He takes some deep breaths. When Turtle says, tentatively, “Vin?” he pulls his head up.  
  


“Let’s get wasted,” he says, and Turtle nods so fast it’s like having a bobble-head across from him.  
  


The next day, he’s roused from his hangover by a phone call from Ari. “Shauna says you aren’t doing press.”  
  


“Yeah,” Vince grumbles, not bothering to sit up. Not sure if he can. “Why. What.”  
  


“If you don’t do press, the movie sinks. If the movie sinks, Vince, we can’t tie up Thor.”  
  


“That’s fine,” Vince says. “I’m not feeling very super anyway.”  
  


“Vince — you signed a contract,” Ari says. “You have to do press. If you don’t, everyone in town’s gonna ask why.”  
  


“They’re just gonna ask about Eric,” Vince says.  
  


“No. No. No one’s going to do that, because I’ll kill them if they do. And we’re not worried about the press, Vince, we’re worried about the people who go to movies and the people who make movies, and most of them don’t give a rat’s ass about your love life. You don’t do press and they’re gonna assume it’s the movie that’s got you down, not your worthless elfin ex.”  
  


“Fuck you, Ari,” Vince says, and hangs up. He turns his phone off, and then, for good measure, throws it across the room, and goes back to sleep on Eric’s pillow.  
  


But Ari is persistent, as always; the doorbell rings around 4, when Vince is finally alive enough to be drinking coffee in the kitchen.  
  


“You have to do this,” he says. “You’re already booked on Leno, you’re already booked on The View and Letterman. I might be able to cancel Larry King — he’s so old he won’t even know if you don’t show — but these others, Vince —”  
  


“Do I look like I’m in any condition to do fucking press?”  
  


“You look beautiful. You look like ten million bucks. So shoot a Red Bull or hit a bong or whatever, baby, I don’t care, you look great and the movie needs you.”  
  


Vince sighs. “I’m not. I can’t. Did you see the thing for Vanity Fair?”  
  


“I did. I did. And if I could have stopped it, I would have, but Vinnie, this isn’t play time, anymore. Eric’s in the news, so-fucking-what. You know what they say, living well is the best revenge, and if you do these few little interviews, we’ll get Thor sewn up and you can be living ten million dollars worth of well real fucking soon.”  
  


“Please get out of my house.”  
  


“You’re an actor. You can fake being fine. Just think of it like five fifteen-minute plays you have to do,” Ari says. He’s pleading. It’s sort of disgusting.  
  


“Out,” Vince says. “Now.”  
  


An hour later, the house phone rings and Barbara Miller leaves a message on the machine that’s alternately maternal and mean. Vince erases it and goes back to sitting in front of the television, getting high with Turtle. They finish three rounds of drinks, and then Vince gets up to get a fourth while Turtle works out on a boxer on screen. The doorbell rings while he’s in the kitchen, and he groans. “Fucking Ari,” he says, and tells Turtle he’ll get it.  
  


It’s Harvey.  
  


“Open the fucking door, kid, because you’re gonna fucking listen to me.”  
  


  
  


Vince doesn’t actually catch most of what Harvey says, because even though he’s spent most of his life speaking and hearing a particularly profanity-rich dialect of English, Harvey’s cursing is beyond the pale. But he does catch the gist of it, which is summed up in one sentence:  
  


“You’re gonna promote this fucking movie with everything you have, or I’m gonna fucking destroy you.”  
  


Vince sighs. He’s alone in the living room with Harvey, because Turtle, the pussy, took one look and scampered. For once, Vince really wishes Dom were around. He shifts, standing behind the armchair to keep a little distance between himself and Harvey and the spitting. “Why?” he asks, feeling tired, all the alcohol and pot now just weighing him down. He’s not even afraid of Harvey anymore, he just wishes he weren’t so fucking loud. “You don’t even have an interest in this movie.”  
  


“Bull fucking shit, I don’t have an interest. Who’s got Cuarón’s next film, huh? Did you pay any attention to that, or were you too busy fucking the extras during filming? Brushing up on your cock-sucking, whatever.”  
  


“You know I wasn’t fucking anybody during that film except Eric.”  
  


Harvey laughs. “Right. Right. Boy wonder, who’s had his head so far up his ass since you went south that I would’ve ripped his lungs out by now, if he were on my side of things.”  
  


“You never would have fired Eric,” Vince says. “He was worth too much. You think I don’t know what he did for your company?”  
  


“Yeah, honestly, kid, I do think you don’t know,” Harvey says. “I had five projects headed down the tubes when that bastard came on, and a year later I had five finished movies. Five. That little prick gets stuff done, and maybe it ain’t the way I’d do it, but he finishes it, he gets up, he does it again. Reminds me of me, except for the fag part.”  
  


“He’s married to his career,” Vince says. “So maybe he’s just like you after all.”  
  


Harvey rolls his eyes. Vince thinks they’re headed back to the yelling, but instead, Harvey sits on the couch. “Everybody who’s worked with that kid wants to do it again,” he says. “You know that?” Vince shrugs. “Yeah, you know that. You’re a pretty kid, and you’re not dumb like you look, and you had that boy wrapped around your little dick for most of his life. The two of you, now, there’s a fucking Hollywood story waiting to be made. People love him. People love you.”  
  


Vince scoffs. “What about you, Harvey? You don’t love either one of us. So, what, you’re just telling me this out of the kindness of your heart?”  
  


“I’m telling you because I’m 50 years old, I just fucking sold my company for a hundred million dollars profit, I eat what I want, I drink what I want, I fuck who I want, I make movies that win Oscars, I haven’t ever had to touch a Viagra, and I’m not half as happy as that kid when he was going home to you at night.” Vince recrosses his arms, keeping his face carefully, perfectly blank. “I been in Hollywood half my life, and you had a good thing, you two, and I don’t know what you did to fuck it up, but —”  
  


“What I did? What I — I didn’t do anything!” Vince says. He’s surprised to find himself shouting, but Harvey brings it out in him. “I — he was never here! He was so busy being your fucking golden boy that I never saw him, I was miserable,  _he_ was miserable —”  
  


“Yeah,” Harvey says, shaking his head. “Ain’t love grand. News flash, kid, love ain’t like the movies. It’s not some easy, float-through thing. You want something, you gotta work for it. Now, maybe E wanted success more than he wanted you. I doubt it, but fine. What was it you wanted more than him? Did you fight for him, or did you just stand there like a pretty little pussy?”  
  


“I’m not talking about this with you,” Vince says. “Why the fuck are you here?”  
  


“Because you’re gonna do these press rounds.” Harvey folds his hands together. “Say you’re going to.”  
  


“No,” Vince says, almost laughing.  
  


“You are,” Harvey says. “Because you really aren’t dumb. And because a man is only as good as his word, Vince, and you gave your word to that director, to everyone who worked on that movie, that you’d support it. And that director gave his word to me that this was going to be a success. So now, now we have a problem, because if you turn out to be a liar, then that makes him a liar, and do you know what I do with liars, Vince?”  
  


Vince rolls his eyes. “Eat them for breakfast. Piss in their skulls. I get it, Harvey, OK? Very bad things.”  
  


“That’s right, Vince,” Harvey says, and he pushes to his feet. “Very bad things.” Vince shakes his head and doesn’t look up as Harvey walks out. “And call your fucking boyfriend before he gets himself fired from Paramount.”  
  


He smells cigar smoke when he passes the front door.  
  


  
  


Vince doesn’t sleep well that night.  
  


In part, that’s because Turtle’s out of the little magic pills. Dom suggests they just get wasted, but Vince’s head still hurts from the night before. So he goes to bed and he can’t help it, he thinks about everything Harvey’s said, and the next morning at breakfast he stops the conversation dead when he says, “Do you guys think I gave up on Eric too easily?”  
  


He sees Johnny and Turtle give each other a look. “Uh, what do you mean, bro?” Johnny asks.  
  


Vince shrugs. “Something Harvey said. I dunno. Like — like maybe I expected him to do all the work?”  
  


“Fuck that,” Dom says.  
  


Vince looks past him to Turtle. Turtle shrugs. “What are you looking at me for? I got no experience in this kind of thing.”  
  


“Yeah,” Vince says. “I know. Sorry.”  
  


Johnny puts his arm around him and says, “Look, things are gonna work out.”  
  


“Yeah, man,” Turtle says, tapping his shoulder awkwardly. “If Drama can find true love, you know it’s gonna happen for all of us.”  
  


“It’s inevitable that we ask ourselves these questions after a major life event. To say, ‘Did I do everything I could?’, that’s human fucking nature, Vin,” Dom says, and Vince looks up at him, completely surprised. Dom shrugs. “What, we only got the networks in the joint. That Oprah, she makes sense some times.”  
  


Vince shakes his head. “OK. I’m fine. Just — sorry, this thing with Ari and Shauna and the magazine’s been driving me nuts, and —” And I have no one to talk to but you guys, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it. Instead, he puts on his best smile and says, “But today’s not about me, right?”  
  


“That’s right,” Turtle says, his voice too bright. “T minus one week, Drama, you ready?”  
  


“I’ve never been more ready in my entire life.”  
  


That afternoon they’re leaving for Vegas for the bachelor party, which is the kick-off for Wedding Week. The week itself will end with the actual ceremony on the beach in Jamaica, but first there are the parties and final details to handle in L.A. Vince, as best man, was supposed to plan the party, but he turned the reins over to Turtle a while back. They’re staying at the Hardwood Suite at the Palms, a two-story super room with a half basketball court/party room that’s going to cost Vince about 25K. When Turtle tells him that, he shrugs and says, “Another good thing about E not coming along is I don’t have to hear any griping about the price tag.”  
  


Eric is one of the groomsmen and was invited by default, though Turtle told Vince a few weeks back that he’d said he’d skip it.  
  


He is, however, about the only person who  _isn’t_  at the party, which is really an awesome deal. Turtle’s invited just about everyone Johnny knows and “a few others on top of that,” so the 200-plus party takes up most of the seven-room suite. There are Hardwood Suite jerseys for everyone and even some Hardwood Suite cheerleaders to keep the party going. Vince watches Turtle trying his best with one of them while he fends off offer after offer from girls by the bar.  
  


“Go ahead and look around,” Vince says as the fourth girl in fifteen minutes asks if he’ll give her a tour of the suite. She frowns, but Vince gives her his best sunny, oblivious look and turns back to the bar. He signals for another beer and glances around; if Johnny’s nearby, he’ll turn on the smile again. Luckily, he’s involved in some kind of death-match three-on-three game with Ralph Macchio and a guy who looks familiar from reality TV. He turns back to his drink and glances over to see who’s taken the girl’s place at the bar.  
  


“What the —”  
  


It’s Eric. He’s looking up at Vince, his hand wrapped around a beer. “Hey,” he says. It’s the first time Vince has seen him in person in seven months, and his first thought is that Eric looks bad. But that’s not really true — he looks as fit as ever, wearing some kind of probably expensive dark polo and jeans, his hair spiky like in the magazine. Still, he looks kind of shitty, red-eyed, slouching, and it takes Vince a second to realize why — Eric’s drunk.   
  


“E?”  
  


He nods. “Hey, Vince. Hey.”  
  


Vince grabs his shoulder. Eric’s pale and a little sweaty. He swallows, then burps quietly and laughs at himself. “How long have you been here?” Vince asks.  
  


“Downstairs,” Eric says. “Down. At the bar. I was — “ he lifts his beer, and Vince grabs it before it reaches his mouth. Eric frowns and looks puzzled. “I was drinking.”  
  


“Yeah, I can tell.” Vince has had a few himself, but he’s nowhere near as drunk as Eric is. He stands up, keeps his hand on Eric’s arm. “Are you all right?”  
  


“I’m fine,” Eric says. “Everyone asks — I’m fine. Fine.” He looks up. His eyes are watering. “I might throw up.”  
  


“Shit.” He gets Eric turned around and starts pushing him through the crowd. “Coming through, hey, move,” he says, and Eric starts repeating him and laughing a little as they go. Vince steers him away from the locker rooms and toward the bedrooms at the back, each of which has an attached bath. He swipes his card to enter and pushes Eric through the door ahead of him.  
  


“Dark.”  
  


Vince hits the lights, and finds Eric standing three feet away, staring straight up.   
  


“Whoa.”  
  


“Are you gonna be sick?”  
  


Eric shrugs. He shuffles forward, then drops face-down onto the bed, groans faintly, and doesn’t move.  
  


“E?” Nothing. Vince walks over tentatively, afraid Eric’s going to startle and throw up. He sits cautiously on the end of the bed. “Um. Eric?” He shakes his shoulder and gets a little grunt. OK. Alive, at least. Vince pulls his hand back and rubs his own face. Shit. He has no idea what to do. Sure, he’s had visions of Eric crawling back to him over the past few months, but he never saw it happening like this. The guy might not even know where he is or who he’s with. He might, Vince thinks with a little thrill of alarm, have some kind of serious alcohol poisoning. Eric was usually pretty good about holding his liquor; to be this wasted, well, Vince doesn’t want to think about how many drinks that would take.  
  


He gets out his phone and calls Turtle, who answers with a shout. He grumbles but agrees to leave the party, and a minute later, he’s there, next to Vince, the two of them staring down at Eric’s prone form.  
  


“We oughtta get him on his side,” Turtle says. “Is he awake at all?”  
  


“He was,” Vince says.  
  


Turtle looks over. “Drugs?”  
  


“I don’t think so,” Vince says, but he’s not totally sure. It would be out of character, but — it’s been a while. “He just said he’d been drinking downstairs.”  
  


Turtle sighs and grabs Eric’s arm. “Smells like whiskey,” he says. “That’ll do it.”  
  


They get Eric arranged on to his side. When Vince asks if they should take off his pants or anything, Turtle says, “Uh, there’s no fun in that tonight.”  
  


“I meant to make him more comfortable.”  
  


“Way he is, we could drop him off the balcony right now and he’d sleep like a baby,” Turtle says. He taps Eric’s face with his hand, and Eric snorts a little. “Yeah, he’s OK.”  
  


“He doesn’t look OK.”  
  


Turtle rolls his eyes. “Just wait till morning,” he says.  
  


The party’s still in full swing. Vince can’t ask Turtle to quit just to babysit Eric, and he’s not going to ask Dom. Johnny is clearly out. “I’ll stay with him,” Vince says, and Turtle nods.  
  


”Good idea.” He winks, and Vince groans and shoves him back into the hall. “OK. I’m going.”  
  


After he’s gone, Vince doesn’t know what to do. He could stretch out next to Eric — the bed’s certainly big enough — but that seems, well, both presumptuous and weird. He doesn’t want Eric getting any ideas, and if Eric came here with ideas, he certainly doesn’t want him to think that it will be this easy. Instead, he finds his way to the couch, lays down, and tries not to think too hard, yet, about what this all might mean.


	6. Chapter 6

About 4 am, Vince wakes to the sound of Eric throwing up. He peels himself off of the couch and goes into the bathroom, which is a huge Jacuzzi-inclusive number with a separate little closet for the toilet. Vince stops at the door and can see Eric inside, one hand on his forehead and the other on the toilet. He gags again, and Vince winces and turns around, fills a cup with water at the tap. He’s sitting on the edge of the Jacuzzi when Eric stumbles out, straight over to the sink, where he turns on the water and ducks his head underneath.  
  


“E?”  
  


Eric sputters, spits water into the sink, and groans. He sinks to his knees, rests his head against the marble countertop. “Don’t look,” he says, his voice raspy.  
  


Vince gets up and turns the sink off. He turns, then sits on the floor next to Eric. Eric’s skin is green and shiny with sweat. Vince watches him swallow. He’s been this hungover before — or this drunk, it’s hard to tell which side of it Eric’s on — and he knows that even touching him will probably send him over the edge. So he just sits there, very still, until Eric swallows again, takes a few slow, deep breaths, and then opens his eyes.  
  


“You all right?” Vince asks quietly.  
  


Eric lifts one shoulder. He peels back from the counter, slowly, and rubs his forehead with a shaking hand. “Feel like death,” he mutters, the hand now covering his mouth.  
  


“Gonna be sick again?”  
  


He lifts his shoulder another time. Vince reaches over, very tentatively, and puts his hand on Eric’s ribcage. His shirt is wet and cold with sweat. “C’mon,” Vince says. “We’ll get you back to bed.”  
  


Eric shakes his head. He says, “Towel,” so Vince grabs a big bath towel from a stack nearby and hands it over. Eric whispers something that might be a thank you, then drops it on the floor. He lowers himself to the ground and rests his head on it, turning on his side.  
  


“OK, seriously, that can’t be comfortable.”  
  


“I’m fine,” Eric mutters. His eyes are already closed again. “Not your problem.”  
  


Vince stares at him for a second, then gets up. Maybe Eric’s not even here to see him. Maybe he just came out of obligation. Vince walks back into the suite and sits on the couch. Eric isn’t his responsibility anymore, right?  
  


He leans back. The light is still on in the bathroom, which is making it kind of hard to sleep. He could move to the bed — Eric’s not using it, after all. So he gets up, and as he does, he sees Eric curled on the bathroom floor out of the corner of his eye.  
  


Eric isn’t his responsibility. Like hell.  
  


He drags a blanket off the bed and one of the pillows. When he walks into the bathroom, Eric moans a little.  
  


“OK, here we go,” Vince says, pulling the blanket over him. He can see he’s shivering, and he takes care to tuck it around him, so there’s something between him and the cold marble floor. Vince crouches beside him, gets Eric to lift his head for a minute so he can get the pillow under him. His back’s still probably going to kill him in the morning, he thinks, but there’s not a lot he can do about that. “E? Are you all right?”  
  


Eric swallows, then opens his eyes halfway. “Mmhm,” he says. “Go to bed.”  
  


His voice is still rough, but it’s a little kinder. Vince squeezes his shoulder. “I’ll be right outside if you need me,” he says.  
  


“Thanks.”  
  


The next time Vince wakes up, it’s morning, and Eric’s lying beside him in the bed. He reaches out from habit he didn’t even know he still had, and Eric murmurs in his sleep and turns toward him. They’re on their usual sides — Vince on the right, Eric on the left — and when Eric’s hand falls onto Vince’s ribcage, he closes his eyes and thinks it could easily be seven months ago. It could be a year ago. He really, really wishes it was.  
  


He turns and looks at Eric, and slowly, maybe from the movement or some sixth sense, Eric’s eyes open. “Oh,” he says, and swallows thickly. “Uh.”  
  


“Hello,” Vince says.  
  


Eric blinks. “Hi.”  
  


“You’re in my bed.”  
  


Eric nods. “Sorry. Sorry. I — Jesus, I’m not even sure what happened,” he says.  
  


“How do you feel?”  
  


“OK,” Eric says. It’s always been this way for Eric, even when they were teenagers — if he got drunk enough to throw up, he’d be fine the next day. “I was a mess, huh?”  
  


“Pretty bad,” Vince agrees.  
  


Eric closes his eyes again. “What happened?” he asks, very quietly. “Did I — did anything —”  
  


“No,” Vince says. “I walked you here from the bar, you passed out, you woke up, you threw up —”  
  


“I remember that.”  
  


“And then here you are.”  
  


“OK.” He frowns and pulls his hand away, carefully. “Sorry about that.”  
  


Vince sighs. “E, what are you doing here?”  
  


Eric’s hand clenches in front of him. “I don’t know. I came for the party. I wanted — I felt like —” He opens his eyes, but he doesn’t look at Vince. “I felt like I owed it to Drama. But, then I got here, and I — I couldn’t.”  
  


“You couldn’t… see me?” Eric shrugs. Vince feels a tiny thrill over the steady, nauseating nervousness. “So you drained a bottle of whiskey?”  
  


“And maybe like a dozen of its closest friends,” Eric says. “Stupid. I know.”  
  


“Really stupid,” Vince says.  
  


Eric looks up at him, just briefly, a tiny, near-smile on his face. “Though it got me back in your bed.”  
  


Vince shakes his head. “It’s not that easy. It’s not going to be this easy.”  
  


“I know,” Eric says, then, “Wait.  _Going to be_?” There’s a tiny warble of hope in his voice.   
  


Vince looks down. “I don’t know.”  
  


“Do you — do you think there’s any way —” Eric clears his throat, and his hands fidget on the blankets. “Don’t answer that, all right?”  
  


“I don’t even know what you were going to ask.”  
  


“Vince.” Vince looks over, and sees desperation and exhaustion on Eric’s face, hope and despair. Love. Eric looks away. “I ought to go.”  
  


Vince nods, though he’s thinking no, no, no. Eric sits up and puts his legs over the side of the bed, and Vince raises his hand, wants to touch the broad expanse of his back, but he can’t, not quite. Not now.  
  


“Stay,” he says, instead. “Stay for breakfast.” Eric looks back over his shoulder, and Vince avoids meeting his eyes. “Johnny’ll want you here.”  
  


Eric nods, after a moment. “Yeah, all right.” He gets up and rubs his head, then says, “You mind if I, uh, I should maybe take a shower.”  
  


“Sure.”  
  


He watches Eric walk to the bathroom and doesn’t move until the door is closed. Then he covers his face for a second, trying to make himself think past the one obvious thought that’s running through his brain: it felt really, really good to have Eric back in bed with him. It felt fucking wonderful to wake up and have him there.  
  


He figures he has two choices, right now. He can get up, go out into the suite and eat breakfast with the guys, wait for Eric to show up, and they can all sit around awkwardly and not talk about the break-up elephant in the room. And Eric will go home, and Vince will go home, and they’ll dance around each other at the wedding and eventually things will get less awkward and maybe, in a year or so, they’ll be friends again. They’ll see each other at industry events and whenever Turtle decides to throw a party, and they might even reach a place where they can joke around again, where it won’t take a crate of bourbon to get Eric into the same room with him, where it won’t take a prescription for Vince to fall asleep alone. Vince can get up and walk back into his old life. He can accept that love is hard, too hard, has too many possibilities for unhappy endings , and he can just float through, fuck whoever he wants, not worry about this kind of stuff ever again.  
  


Or he can do this:  
  


He gets up and pushes the bathroom door open. The shower is running — an amazing contraption in and of itself, with eight shower heads and no real door, just a stone opening that you walk around to get to the main shower, which is square and has two little benches built into the side. He wishes there was a curtain, something to pull back to make a dramatic entrance, because as it is, when he rounds the corner, still wearing his pajamas, Eric has his back to him, one arm braced on the shower wall, the water rushing down his bare, muscled back.  
  


Vince shifts, shuffles his feet, finally clears his throat, and Eric jumps. “Jesus Christ!” he yelps, and then turns and his eyes go very wide. “Vince? What the — what the fuck?”  
  


And Vince steps forward, into the spray from all eight jets, hit suddenly in the head and the stomach and the chest and everywhere, all at once, by clean warm water and then, very soon after that, by being this close to Eric, naked and wide-eyed and definitely, clearly wanting him.  
  


“You’re in my shower,” Eric says, his hands at his sides.  
  


“You were in my bed,” Vince says, and puts his hands on Eric’s bare waist and ducks to kiss him.  
  


Eric kisses back like he’s afraid they’re on a deadline. He nearly pushes Vince over, in fact, frantically tugging at his wet T-shirt. Vince pushes Eric back, onto one of the benches, then peels his shirt off and drops it on the floor. Eric wipes water from his face, reaches out and slaps off the shower jets. He’s breathing fast and staring up at Vince, half-scared, Vince can see. He kneels in front of him and watches Eric swallow, puts his hands on Eric’s sides, feels the thundering of his heart. Eric’s hands come up and land gently on Vince’s shoulders, and Vince angles up for a kiss, then another, then another. He can feel Eric’s cock rubbing against his chest.  
  


“I —” Eric starts, his hands tangled in Vince’s hair, and Vince pulls back and shakes his head, then lowers it and takes Eric in his mouth. Eric’s whole body seizes up, his head falls back, he curses. Vince keeps his hands steady on Eric’s thighs and his mouth firm and warm around Eric’s dick. He remembers everything Eric likes, traces the vein on the under side with his tongue, pays attention to the head, even inches his fingers back to tease Eric’s balls. He starts to push back, further, and Eric spreads his legs a little more, seems willing, but that’s not what Vince wants. Not after all this time. So he pulls back and looks up at Eric, who’s looking down at him in alarm.  
  


Vince smiles. “Bedroom,” he says, and Eric nods fast, relieved. “I wouldn’t do that to you,” he says, rocking back onto his heels.  
  


“Thank God.”  
  


Vince leaves his pajamas in a sopping heap on the bathroom floor, then follows Eric into the bedroom and onto the bed. He worries, briefly, that they’re out of the moment, that Eric’s going to want to talk about what this means or what they’re doing, but Eric just immediately rolls Vince onto his back and starts kissing him again, their cocks meeting for a few electrifying seconds.  
  


He would love to spend some time reacquainting himself with Eric's body, seeing if anything has changed in the last six months, if he's still ticklish behind his knees or automatically turned on by teeth on his earlobes, but he knows neither of them can last that long. So Vince pulls one of his legs up, clear invitation, and Eric groans, rubbing his hand over Vince’s taut thigh, then kissing the inside of his knee. He reaches for the bedside table — thank God the Palm thinks of everything — and Vince says, “Condom, too,” and Eric looks back, whip-fast, a tiny hitch of something — disappointment, surprise, jealousy — flashing across his face. But he masks it or works past it, and soon he’s slicking Vince up and kissing him at the same time, taking a moment to lave his nipples and run teasing bites across his collarbones. Fuck, no one fucks like Eric, Vince thinks as he pushes in. No words — and hardly any sounds — pass between them, but Eric knows exactly how to do things right, how to move precisely so that Vince’s back arches without him even thinking about it, in fact, how to move so that Vince isn’t thinking at all, he’s just reduced to a bucking, clenching, wanting nerve-ending, and Eric above him and in him is the only thing he knows.  
  


He sees stars when he comes, and he holds Eric tight, close, doesn’t let him back off for a minute while he tries to get his head back on straight. Eric kisses his jaw, the tendons of his neck, licks at the sweat behind his ear, and Vince finally nods, finally lets him pull back and out and away.  
  


Once they’ve both caught their breath, Vince swallows and says, “So. How’ve you been?”  
  


Eric laughs. “Bad,” he says, once he’s calmed down. “You?”  
  


“Yeah, pretty bad.” Vince shifts just a little, so his calf is against Eric’s. “I heard you’re fucking up on the job.”  
  


“Yeah, I heard the same about you.”  
  


“I’m not well managed.”  
  


“Ha.”  
  


Vince exhales hard, in a burst, then turns onto his side. Eric looks over at him, a funny, sexy once-over. “I did not expect this,” he says.  
  


“Me either,” Vince says. “But — I think that’s sort of been our theme.”  
  


Eric smirks. “Maybe so,” he says. One of his hands is resting on his chest, and Vince watches, fascinated, as it twitches up, then back, then up again.   
  


Vince smiles, and slides his hand over Eric’s ribs, and Eric’s hand rests on his side, still jumpy. “You just fucked me, you can touch if you want,” he says, and Eric snorts, but his hand steadies.  
  


“So — what does this mean?”  
  


“I don’t know,” Vince says. He ducks to kiss Eric’s shoulder. “But I have missed the fuck out of you.”  
  


“Christ, me too.”  
  


The next round damn near costs Vince $25,000, because they fall asleep afterwards and sleep through check-out time. Luckily, the Palms media guy is so excited when Vince agrees to walk the carpet outside the hotel for promotional photos that he forgives the whole thing. Eric, blushing faintly at the ribbing he’s getting from the guys for being a $25K lay, stays pretty far back during that whole discussion.  
  


“So, what do you think, you wanna ride back with us?” Vince asks, after the photos are over and they’re in the limo on the way to the airport. He hired a jet to take them out and back, just to add a little luxury. Johnny’s on the phone with Larissa, and Turtle and Dom are playing head-to-head on their PSPs.   
  


Eric looks alarmed. “Uh.”  
  


Vince sits back, just a little, feels a terrible jolt of something — rejection, fear, nerves — course through him. “What?”  
  


“Nothing,” Eric says, shaking his head. “Of course. Yeah. I just, uh, I couldn’t remember where I left my car.”  
  


Vince raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? You didn’t drive, did you?”  
  


“No,” Eric says, shaking his head vigorously. “I’d love a ride. Yeah. Thanks.” And then he shifts over so his leg is again pressed to Vince’s, and Vince looks down and nearly laughs.  
  


Instead, he just smiles and squeezes Eric’s knee. “Good.”  
  


The guys take Eric in like he’s never been gone, so much so that Vince feels kind of bad, like he’s been depriving everyone of Eric’s company the past few months. And Eric looks so happy — so surprised, and so happy — to be on the plane, joking around, teasing Turtle and not taking any shit from Dom, that Vince wonders who he’s had to hang out with in the last few months, whether he’s had any fun at all.  
  


When they land at Van Nuys, Eric hangs back a little as things are loaded into their car, and Vince turns. Eric’s typing furiously on his Blackberry; when he sees Vince looking, though, he clicks it shut instantly. “Sorry,” he says.  
  


Vince shrugs. “E, I know you have a job.”  
  


Eric nods. “But — I didn’t want you to think — “  
  


“Are you riding with us? Or you have your car here?”  
  


Eric gets a slightly guilty look on his face. “I, uh, actually, I need to catch a flight.”  
  


“What?”  
  


He blushes. “I have a meeting in Telluride tonight.”  
  


Vince lets the limo door close. “Seriously?” Eric nods. He looks nervous, like he’s bracing for Vince to start yelling. Vince laughs. “You flew all the way back here just to — what, hang out with us?” Eric nods again, and Vince grins. He grabs Eric by the shoulders and kisses him, and though it takes a second, Eric kisses back. “Go, go. Go to your meeting,” he says. “But you’ll be back for the final fittings and stuff tomorrow, right?”  
  


“Yeah,” he says. “Already all arranged. I swear.” He smiles up at Vince. “Totally worth the trip, for that.”  
  


“Oh, you got sappy in the last seven months, is that it?”  
  


“Get in your car.”  
  


So Vince climbs into the limo, where all three guys are facing him, silent, their expressions ranging from puzzled (Turtle) to vaguely disturbed (Dom). “We’re just leaving him?”  
  


“He’s got a jet coming,” Vince says. “Meeting in Telluride tonight. But he’ll be there tomorrow, he said, don’t worry, Johnny.”  
  


“I’m too hungover to worry,” Johnny says, leaning back into his seat. “Fuck, I could use a massage.”  
  


“What my brother wants, my brother gets,” Vince says, clapping him on the shoulder. He’s happy to have the topic changed away from Eric, because as they drive away he can feel some of his own questions surfacing and he’s not ready to answer anything yet. He’s not ready to think about anything yet, beyond the fact that Eric, it seems, is back. So he suggests they go to the day spa that Johnny really likes, and even though Turtle rolls his eyes, that’s where they end up. Everyone gets a massage, even Dom, who decides that the hot stones are “pretty fucking cool,” and afterwards they take a car back to Vince’s place and continue celebrating Johnny’s real last week as a bachelor with good food, good weed, and a few drinks. Around eleven, Eric calls to say he’s back in town, and Vince says, “So come over, we’re just hanging out.” He arrives and, after a minute of nervous shuffling, takes a seat on the couch next to Vince, and within a very short time is actually sitting under Vince’s arm. When they all turn in, Eric follows Vince back to his room, and Vince pulls him onto the bed.  
  


“We should —”  
  


“No,” Vince says. “No talking. Not yet.”  
  


“OK,” Eric agrees, kissing him.  
  


  
  


The rest of the week is a pre-wedding blur. There’s the final fittings to go to, making sure everything looks right, and then the next day they all board a private jet to Jamaica. Vince’s mother and grandmother and two of his sisters arrive that night, and then they have fittings and shopping to do and family dinners to have and just, at every turn wedding things to accomplish. There’s no time to talk, even if Vince wanted to, but it’s OK because whenever he catches Eric’s eye during that week, he gets a sweet, meaningful smile in return, and he feels stupidly happy. And because they’re all staying in the same hotel — they have, in fact, pretty much taken over the resort for the wedding — Eric manages to sneak into his room every night, and that makes everything even better.  
  


The rehearsal dinner is on Friday. Vince’s mom and Larissa’s mother, Shelly, get along really well, though her dad, Lawrence, is a bit of a mystery — he’s quiet, and Vince can’t tell if that’s just his general nature or if it’s a sign of reservations about the wedding. He hopes it’s not the latter. Johnny can be hard to take sometimes, and he doesn’t always make the best first impression, sure, but at heart he’s a great guy.  
  


The dinner is paid for by the bride’s family — the only thing that they’re paying for, at Vince’s insistence — and it’s served family-style at the tables, everyone seated to best encourage the intermingling of the families. Vince is at a table with his cousin Danny and Turtle and four of Larissa’s cousins; Eric and Dom are at another cousin-rich table nearby, though Eric’s mother is also at his table, so Vince tries not to look over too often.  
  


The food is good, even if the cousins — none of whom have apparently ever met a Real Live Movie Star before — are a bit overwhelming. Vince is suffering through about the eighth “I was in the school play” story he’s heard all night when there’s a glass clinked up at the head table.  
  


“Um, excuse me, folks.” Larissa’s father is standing up, a glass held in his hands, looking both sheepish and dour. His voice carries nicely, at least; Vince turns his full attention to him in order to avoid the babbling cousin at his left.  
  


“I know it’s more traditional for the father to speak at the reception, but — I figured, since you’re our guests tonight, maybe you can put up with me better here.”  
  


There are a few polite chuckles, including one that’s a little too loud from Johnny. Vince glances at him, sees his face is pink and he’s staring eagerly up at his soon-to-be father-in-law, and he smiles a little to himself. Next to Johnny, their mother is smiling, too, one hand on Johnny’s shoulder.  
  


“I just wanted to say a few things. Rissa’s our oldest, so this is a big moment for Shelly and I, seeing our first daughter get married, get ready to start a home of her own.”  
  


Vince nods along and lets his mind drift a little as Lawrence talks about Larissa’s childhood, how proud they were of her making her way through college, all of that. His mother looks happy, and so does Johnny. When he sneaks a glance, Eric’s whispering something to his mother, who’s nodding.  
  


“And so we sent her off to California, and we hoped for the best. We heard all kinds of things, but we just trusted our girl, like we always had, and pretty soon good things started happening, and then she called home and said, Mom, Dad, I’ve met this man, a television star. And a little while after that, she called and said, we’re getting married.  
  


“But, now, of course, we’re practical people. We come from corn-growers, from people who plant and raise crops for a living. And when we heard that Johnny had proposed, I gave Larissa the same advice that my father gave me, when I proposed to Shelly. I told her, marriage is something you have to want. It’s something you have to work at. It’s like anything else you’d grow — you have to nurture it, you have to tend it. You’re gonna work every day to stay married, and if you’re not working then you’re probably going backwards, you’re letting the weeds creep in. But if you love someone that much, and you know your life is better with him than without him, then that work is gonna bring you quite a reward at the end.”  
  


He pauses to smile down at his daughter, and Vince keeps looking straight ahead, afraid to turn lest he catches Eric’s eye. His heart is beating a little fast.  
  


“And so I asked her the question my folks asked me. I said, honey, do you love him enough to do that work? Does he love you like that? Can the two of you make a life together, make things work? And when she said yes, without hesitating, that’s when we knew that things were gonna work out.” He pauses a little and there’s real emotion in his voice. “And we are so, so proud of her, and so, so happy that she’s found someone to share her life with, from this day — well, from tomorrow forward.” He chuckles. “Tonight, she’s still our little girl.”  
  


There’s another rush of warm laughter from everyone, and then a toast and raised glasses, and Vince gulps his champagne and doesn’t look at Eric’s table, though he thinks he can feel Eric’s eyes on his back. Work, he thinks. Work can keep you together, work can tear you apart.  
  


He thinks about getting drunk, but it seems like bad form. There are still cousins to entertain — he lets Turtle handle most of that and doesn’t comment when the stories about Hollywood are way overdrawn — and food to compliment, and when it’s time to mingle he manages to never be in exactly the same place that Eric is, probably through effort on both sides.  
  


Then the whole thing is over, and Vince’s mother and Eric’s mother say they’re going to bed early for beauty rest, and Larissa tells Johnny he should do the same. “You guys coming?” Johnny asks his groomsmen.  
  


“Uh, you guys go ahead,” Eric says. “I’m gonna get some air, first, I think.”  
  


He walks off, toward the beach, and Vince finally lets himself look his way.  
  


Dom starts to say something about a party, but Turtle elbows him hard. “We’re gonna go upstairs,” he says. “Definitely, uh, yeah, time for bed.” He claps Vince’s shoulder and says he’ll see him upstairs, Vince nods. It’s time, he realizes, for the talk.  
  


Eric’s sitting on the beach, a few feet out of the water’s reach, knees up, staring at the ocean. He’s picked a dark spot in the sand, the faint string lights from the patio casting an ineffective yellowish glow that doesn’t intrude on the view of the dark water and the dark sky. Vince sits next to him, close, mimicking Eric’s position exactly.  
  


“That speech, huh?” Vince says.  
  


“Yeah. Pretty good.”   
  


“I think he may actually like Johnny after all.”  
  


“I think he likes whoever his daughter likes.”  
  


“Good point,” Vince allows.  
  


“She seems nice.”  
  


Vince tips his head. Maybe this is the way to start. “I wish you knew her a little better.”  
  


“Yeah,” Eric says. “I guess — I was thinking about that, I wasn’t ever around her much, huh?”  
  


“You weren’t around much, period.”  
  


“I know.” Eric clears his throat. “I get that I’m part of what went wrong,” he says. “The job, the working all the time — I get it. And if we’re gonna try this again, then, I can promise you I’ll try to do better.”  
  


Vince takes a deep breath. What he thinks, first, is I don’t believe you, but he can’t say that. He knows that could end everything again. Before he can think of another response, though, Eric goes on. “I’ve got a better job now. I don’t work for Harvey. I still work a lot, but I work with guys who have families, guys who have wives and lives and all of that. And if we’re — if we’re gonna do this, then I want to do it where I can tell them, so I can make you, this, us a top priority. You know?”   
  


Vince nods.   
  


“The truth is, though,” Eric says, and Vince braces himself for something harsh, some explicit statement of what he’s thinking: there’s no guarantee. “The truth is, if you say the only way this is gonna work is if I quit my job, Vin, I’ll do it.” He looks over, and Vince can’t really see his face, but he’s not sure he wants to.  
  


“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Vince says, quietly. “E — I know you. I know what having a job, what being a success, means to you.” He sighs, sifts a little sand through his fingers. “You know, I think you’re probably right, I do have a problem with you working, but it isn’t the problem you think. It’s not professional jealousy, or — whatever. I’ve never wanted anything for you but happiness, E. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for any of us.”  
  


“I like working,” Eric says. “I’m good at my job. I’m — I’m actually, I’m great at it. When I’m on. I can’t — I don’t want to just stop that, and I don’t want to feel bad every time I’m working hard.”  
  


“I don’t want that, either,” Vince says. “But I also don’t want to end up in a relationship and feeling lonely at the same time.” He shifts his body a little, so he’s facing Eric, but Eric stays looking out at the ocean. “You know what I missed the most? I missed having somebody to talk to. And I started missing that a long time before we broke up, because you stopped talking to me.”  
  


“Because you stopped listening to me,” Eric says, and Vince flinches.  
  


“I did not.”  
  


“Yeah, you kind of did,” Eric says. “I’d start talking about stuff — work, or whatever — and you’d just glaze over.”  
  


Vince sighs. “Because it was always Harvey this, Harvey that.”  
  


“Vin, he was my boss. And it was hell working for him, a lot of the time, yeah. But you know what made it worse? I had to go through all of that alone, because if I wasn’t talking about your career, you didn’t seem to care what I had done every day.”  
  


Vince wants to object, but he knows exactly what Eric’s talking about. He knows he tuned out the Harvey talk. “I thought — I guess I thought you didn’t want to talk about it,” he says slowly. “I thought the best I could do was distract you.”  
  


Eric laughs, a quick, short laugh. “Yeah, well, you were good at that.”  
  


Vince keeps looking at Eric, and Eric doesn’t turn. He gets a sinking feeling, thinking about all of this water under the bridge, all these ways they hurt each other without knowing or even intending to. He starts to say, “Do you think,” and then he’s not sure what he wants to ask. All he knows is that he wants Eric more than he’s afraid of wanting him.  
  


“I can work on it,” Vince says, finally. “I’m willing to work on this.”  
  


He still can’t really see Eric’s face, but he realizes he doesn’t need to. What he needs is this: he reaches over, grabs Eric’s hand where it’s resting on his knee, and threads his fingers between Eric’s. This is the question he wants to ask.  
  


Eric makes a soft, surprised noise, and then he squeezes Vince’s fingers. “Yeah,” he says, leaning his shoulder against Vince’s. “Me, too.”  
  


  
  


The wedding is the next day. Johnny’s a mess. He swears he’s not nervous, but Vince can hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes, and he finally takes him aside after he’s nearly dropped his second cup of coffee over breakfast in the suite. “Look, are you all right?” he asks.  
  


“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine, bro. Just, you know, it’s a fairly complicated ceremony, I was thinking about — hey, do you have the rings?”  
  


“In their boxes in the room safe,” Vince says.   
  


“Good. That’s good, she’d never fucking forgive me if those — not that she’s not a forgiving girl, I mean, she puts up with me, right, so she’s gotta be —” He looks down at his hands. “Why do you think, I mean, is it weird at all that we’re doing this? Too soon? Too late? I’m 45, bro, she’s only in her thirties, we might — we’ve barely even talked about kids, and —”  
  


“Johnny. Seriously. She’s a great girl. Are you really having second thoughts, or is this just jitters?”  
  


Johnny meets his eyes. “No,” he says. “No second thoughts.”  
  


“OK,” Vince says, nodding, and Johnny starts to nod along. “Because you love her. I know it, you know it. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”  
  


Johnny smiles. “Yeah. Yeah, I know it.” He leans in fast and hugs Vince, and Vince hugs him back. He’s so fucking proud of Johnny, so grateful to have him as an older brother. “Good day, right?”  
  


“Great day,” Vince says as he pulls back. Johnny nods and takes a deep breath, and then pats Vince on the back and leads him back to the kitchen.  
  


“And hey — congrats, you and E. That’s fucking great, man, I’m glad you got him back.”  
  


Vince shrugs. He looks up as they walk into the kitchen, sees Eric sitting at the dining table, reading something on his laptop and smirking a little at whatever Turtle’s saying. They didn’t talk much last night, but Vince feels like some corner has been turned, that they’ve acknowledged their problems and said they’re going to fix them, not just give up. “We’ll see,” he says.  
  


The wedding goes off without a hitch. Larissa has a beautiful dress she designed and made herself, white on white on a faint, shimmery pink, and next to Johnny in his dark sharp tux, she positively glows. Johnny’s voice trembles a little as he gives her the ring, but it’s touching, not nervous. Their mother and grandmother, sitting on the front row, both cry.  
  


Afterward there’s a crush of family and friends around, and Vince can’t really drink too much because his mother’s there. Beyond that, Vince is so conscious of Eric in the room that he’s afraid to touch the champagne, in case it goes to his head and he finds himself making out with Eric on the dance floor.  
  


He makes it through the reception, or most of it, before he catches Eric’s eye across the room and tips his head in the direction of the elevators. Ten minutes later, they’re in Eric’s room, and Eric says, “That was so fucking subtle, Jesus, I’m glad you don’t make your money in any kind of performance industry.”  
  


“Fuck you,” Vince says, working on Eric’s fly.  
  


“Not enough time, but a good idea for later.”  
  


They make it back to the party just as Johnny’s pulling the garter off of Larissa’s leg, and though Larissa’s cousins all shove Vince toward the crowd it’s Dom who catches the thing. “The fuck am I gonna do with this?” he asks, flinging it toward Eric, who looks mildly alarmed when he catches it.  
  


Vince laughs and Eric winks at him, which makes him laugh even harder. He’s feeling nicely relaxed, now, post-sex, so he takes some champagne when it comes by and then dutifully dances with half of the bridesmaids. At the end of the night they pelt Johnny and Larissa with rice as they dash toward the limo that will take them to the airport, and Vince puts one hand on Eric’s shoulder, ostensibly to steady himself, as they watch them drive away.  
  


“Long fucking day,” Turtle says, when they’re all back upstairs in his suite. He’s methodically packing the bong while the other three guys work on stripping off the non-essential parts of the tux: Dom is in his undershirt and unbelted pants, while Eric only loses the tie and jacket and shoes.  
  


“Long fucking week,” Dom says, flopping into an armchair. “I gotta admit, I’m surprised they went through with it.”  
  


“Really?” Vince asks. He takes a seat on the couch. Eric’s at the fridge, getting them all beers. “You didn’t think Johnny would?”  
  


“I didn’t think she would,” he says. “Didn’t think I’d live to see the day when Johnny fucking Chase found a decent girl to settle down with.”  
  


“They’re a good match,” Vince says. Eric hands the beers around, then sits on Vince’s couch. “I’m glad he found her.”  
  


“Yeah,” Turtle says, “though I gotta admit, I love the guy, but I never thought he’d be the first one of us to get married.”  
  


Eric takes a sip of his beer, then says, “Yeah, Turtle, who’d you think —”  
  


“You,” Dom and Turtle say in unison, and Vince snickers.   
  


“And if you woulda got your fucking act together a little sooner, you totally could have beat him,” Turtle says.  
  


Eric rolls his eyes, but then Dom says, “Nah, he’s right, man, you two shoulda got gay-married a long fucking time ago and saved us all these months of whiny bullshit.”  
  


“Hey -” Vince starts.  
  


“He’s right, Vin,” Turtle says. “I would never call you whiny, but the two of you, it’s a fucking drag when you’re fighting. So listen, don’t do that shit again, OK?”  
  


Eric looks over at Vince. Vince wags his eyebrows, grinning until Eric smiles back and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Fine, we’ll try it your way. No fighting.”  
  


“No fighting,” Vince says, and he shakes Eric’s hand, then kisses him. “Instead, I’ll just always be right.”  
  


“Like old times.”  
  


The next day all of the extended family leaves early in the morning, giving Vince a little time with his mother. Eric’s mother is still around, too, so she joins them for a family brunch catered in to Vince’s suite. While Eric’s showing her how to work the in-room cappuccino maker at the bar, Vince’s mother comes over and takes a seat beside him. “So when am I going to get one of these out of you?” she asks.  
  


“You need a cappuccino maker?”  
  


“Don’t get smart with me,” she says. She waves her hands around. “A wedding, Vincent.”  
  


Vince shrugs. “As soon as E’s rich enough to spring for one.”  
  


Eric nearly drops the cappuccino he’s holding. “Yeah, very funny, Vince,” he says, giving him a quick, sharp, evil eye.  
  


“What?” Eric’s mother says. “You live in the right state for it, at least.” Vince stares at her, just like Eric is, trying to figure out if she’s joking. She shrugs. “You think the old folks are so blind, is that it? A year and a half, you’re living at his house, and then you break up and move out and you don’t think your own mother noticed?”  
  


Vince glances at his mother, who has a similarly stern, disbelieving look. “You knew?” he asks.  
  


“My darling, I love you and you’re a great actor, but to your mother, you’re practically see-through,” she says. Vince laughs, nervously, and looks over at Eric, who still seems shell-shocked.  
  


“So your brother says you’re patching things up,” his mom continues.  
  


“Johnny’s got a big mouth,” Vince mumbles, and his mother smacks his arm. “What? He does.”  
  


“He’s a good boy. A married boy — married man. And if you’d take his lead, you wouldn’t spend all your time trying to escape horny Nebraska cousins all night. That’s what the ring is for, baby.”  
  


“Where were all of you people with your advice seven months ago?” Vince asks, and Eric’s mother laughs.  
  


“You boys haven’t listened to us since you were eight.”  
  


“Doesn’t mean we have to stop trying,” Vince’s mom says. “Is it so terrible, a mother wants her son settled down and happy? I know you don’t have a problem with commitment, Eric.”  
  


Eric sets his cup down on the counter. “Give us a break, Rita,” he says. “We’re still figuring things out.”  
  


“That’s how it works,” Eric’s mother says. “There’s never a perfect time. You wait for that and I’m gonna be dead before I get any grandchildren from you.”  
  


Vince looks up. “You’re relentless,” he says, and Eric’s mother smiles.  
  


“Now you know where he gets it,” she says, pinching Eric’s cheek.  
  


“We love you boys,” Vince’s mother says. “We just want you to be happy. And we want at least six months’ notice on the wedding so we have some time to plan. I’m sorry, you’re good boys, but neither one of you has the style to pull off a wedding.”  
  


“It really is a girl thing,” Eric’s mom says, and Eric meets Vince’s eyes and they both laugh.  
  


  
  


When they get back to L.A., Eric comes home with Vince. They don’t talk about it, it just happens, and Vince is enormously glad. Eric sits on his side of the bed, where his pillow is still waiting, and says, “So I have to work in the morning.”  
  


“OK,” Vince says. “I should probably do some of that, too. I guess.”  
  


Eric raises an eyebrow. “You gonna do those interviews after all?”  
  


“Yeah,” Vince says, shrugging. “How’d you know?”  
  


“Ari called me to see if I could convince you.” Eric smirks. “I’ve always sort of loved telling him no.”  
  


Vince gets up with Eric in the morning and has coffee with him before he leaves. He gets the full run of Eric’s day and really listens, so that when he sees him that night, he can ask how the meeting with Berg’s people went. Eric, in turn, gets home at a decent hour and takes an active interest in how Vince’s interviews ran.  
  


“You want me to come to New York with you?” he asks later that week, when they’re talking about Vince’s upcoming spots on “Letterman” and “The Daily Show.”  
  


Vince can see that it’s an honest offer, so he asks an honest question. “Do you really have time?”  
  


Eric shrugs. “No. But I can make time, if you want.”  
  


Vince kisses the side of his head. “I can go one night,” he says, “if you promise me you’ll be home Saturday.”  
  


“Deal.”  
  


Compromises like that make things work and, soon, become second-nature. Though Vince gets a little ribbing from the guys for all of the “E-rules” that he seems to follow (for instance, if he’s going to get drunk with Turtle and Dom, he has to call and let Eric know so that he can either stay later at work or cut out to join them), things really work. Vince feels happy and settled and certain in and of their relationship in a way he hasn’t before.  
  


Two months after Johnny’s wedding, they finally have a double-date with Johnny and Larissa. It’s fun, the four of them hanging out, teasing each other, talking about little coupley things that the other guys don’t get. As they’re waiting for their car, Eric puts his arm around Vince’s waist in full view of the valets and other people waiting in the garage. Vince says, “Yeah?”  
  


“Yeah,” Eric says. “I’m ready if you are.”  
  


That weekend, they go to a premiere for one of Eric’s movies. Vince still makes the bigger splash on the red-carpet, but inside, everyone’s eyes are on Eric. It’s good, Vince decides. It’s where they’ve been headed.  
  


“Nice turn-out,” Eric says, taking his seat beside Vince.  
  


“You’re a star,” Vince says, and Eric looks over, a question in his eyes. Vince smiles. “Hey, you’ve earned it.”  
  


Eric raises an eyebrow. “What have you earned?”  
  


Vince reaches over and takes Eric’s hand, and then leans across and, in full view of the rows of producers and Hollywood glitterati behind them, in full view of Harvey, who he can already hear bellowing, he kisses him. “This,” he says, and Eric blushes.  
  


“Yeah,” he says, still looking at Vince, just at Vince, not at anyone around them. “I think we both have.”


End file.
